Scenarios and Strategies for COVID-19

Whether it turns out that we're currently living through the very first segment of either a "v" shaped recovery, a "V", a "W" or an "L", we only know it's looked something like " \... " and the "..." is what we have to plan for next.

The purpose of this survey is to identify what scenarios you're modeling, and the strategies and solutions you're deploying (or readying your organization to deploy) in hopes of summarizing and sharing the wisdom of the crowd back with everybody.

We plan to leave this survey open for the foreseeable future, and plan to report back to this discussion thread within ICMA Connect with results on a weekly basis.

Question Title

* 1. Are you modeling various revenue forecasts (scenarios) to help quantify the potential fiscal impacts of COVID-19 on your organization?

Yes

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 2. What financial scenarios are you modeling?

"v"-shaped (a temporary decline in revenue, followed by a rapid, bounce-back)

"V"-shaped (a deeper and more significant decline in revenue, followed by a resurgence of revenue growth)

"W"-shaped (resembling back-to-back v's: first downturn followed by a recovery, but a second downturn ensues due to a return of the virus in fall/winter instigating a return of shelter-in-place policies and another round of economic decline followed by another recovery)

"L"-shaped (the losses from the first decline are not easily recovered, recession or depression follow resulting in longer-term shift/decline in your revenue base, followed by slow recovery)

"U"-shaped (like the "L" but with a steep recovery after a deep and prolonged decline)

"VVvvv"-shaped (a string of "v's" representing more frequent and periodic openings of the economy, followed by closures, corresponding with efforts to stem persistent outbreaks)

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 3. How often are you updating the scenarios you're modeling?

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Other (please specify)

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* 4. For v or V-shaped recovery, what strategies and solutions are you modeling (including strategies you've already deployed)?

Diminish / Eliminate Variances - review trend data in budget to actuals (and budget to budget, actuals to actuals too) and interview departments to determine where variances could be reduced to lessen projected expenses.

Vacancies - inventory vacant positions (and, if you have PBBi data, identify the programs that vacant positions are tied to). Implement a temporary freeze on vacancies, especially non-essential vacancies, or vacancies tied to lower priority programs.

Inventory Reserves - often times, for good reason, individual departments begin to build reserves for unexpected contingencies (so they don’t have to wait on central administration for approvals). Explore reserves and contingency funds - often in IT, Facilities, Fleet, among other funds, multiple reserves and contingencies could have been built up for prudent redundancy, but available for a rainy day.

Review Capital Plan - explore one-time opportunities to suspend minor/major capital expenses, in order to free up resources to bridge a one-time short-fall (only appropriate for one-time, short-term strategy to create a “bridge” to recovery)

Temporary Pay Freezes - temporarily suspend pay increases

Incentivize Retirement - use one-time resources to help provide an incentive to workers who may wish to retire

Slow Cash Flow - explore payment options with vendors and contractors to ease cash flow

Internal Service Funds / Full Cost Allocation - Help distribute expenses to the departments who use services provided by internal support functions like IT, Facilities, Fleet and others (sometimes housed in the General Fund)

Furloughs, pay decrease - Furloughs, or temporary reduction in compensation could be opportunities for staff to keep employment (and possibly benefits) and return to work efficiently when the short-term recovery returns

"Loan” from Reserves, Sinking Funds - often times, for good reason, individual departments begin to build reserves for unexpected contingencies (so they don’t have to wait on central administration for approvals). Explore reserves in IT, Facilities, Fleet and consider if multiple reserves are redundant.

Defer / Temporarily Suspend One-time Expenses - Identify one-time expenses that are less time-sensitive. For example, while you may wish to preserve and prioritize funding for regular asset management programs because they’ll save you money in the long-term, short-term suspension of new construction or fleet replacement or new facilities could free up resources to bridge-the-gap

Service Level Reductions - What services could be provided at a lesser level, even if temporarily

Program Partnerships - Are there opportunities to leverage partners – a.) internally throughout the organization (program consolidation, centralization), or b.) externally with other public sector, non-profit or even private sector partners to leverage, providing programs efficiently multi-party collaboration/ consolidation

Temporary Service Suspension - Are there programs to suspend, even temporarily, to free up resources

Layoffs

Suspension of Contract Labor

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 5. For W-shaped, L, U, Vvvvv (string of v's) or any other recovery beyond the V, what strategies and solutions are you modeling (including strategies you've already deployed)?

Service Level Decrease (Temporarily) - We need to continue to provide this service, but we can be flexible with the level of service (think “records management, or FOIA requests, or signage, etc)

Option to Suspend (Temporarily) - If we had to, we could suspend this service, even if temporarily (think “aquatic center at the parks” or passport processing)

Internal Partnership, Consolidation - Internal partnership, centralization, consolidation opportunities exist for this program (think inspections, fleet, IT support)

Regional Partnership - We are better off still providing this program, but with regional partners in order to maintain our level of service, but do it for less (think regional fleet maintenance, facilities maintenance, etc)

Program Efficiency - Identify all ways to provide the program more efficiently (even if there are one-time costs associated with achieving the overall reduction in program costs)

Full Cost Recovery (Rates, Charges for Service) - If ever there was a time when cost recovery options could be more palatable, for programs that could charge a fee for service to recover the full cost of providing the service, call these programs into question

Grant Funding, Philanthropic - Identify and track costs for COVID response, grant recovery options through FEMA and other agencies, or reaching out to local business / philanthropic partners for support

Internal Consolidation, Centralization - We need to continue to provide this service, but we can be flexible with the level of service (think “records management, or FOIA requests, or signage, etc)

Regional In-sourcing (revenue) - Entrepreneurially, are there opportunities to in-source programs entirely to provide to another entity, as a more efficient model of service delivery where one organization is positioned better to provide the service regionally. This would be a revenue generating opportunity to the in-sourcing organization, and ideally an efficiency (resourcing the service, for less) to both entities given the economy of scale that could be produced.

Regional Collaboration - Opportunistically, are there opportunities that take the form of advantageous out-sourcing – where one could imagine getting services off of their plate, reducing the need for their own organiation to provide a service if it could be provided by their neighbor. And in turn, allow the organization to “free up and reallocate” their own resources towards the high priority pursuits (new programs they need to launch, or current services that need enhancement) that they may not be able to fund today.

Programmatic Shared Services Merger / Consolidation - Are there programs ideal for merging across entities (much like Washington County WI’s “Counties without Borders” initiative)

Other (please specify)

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* 6. How would you describe the data you are drawing upon to generate the strategies and solutions you're deploying?

Line-item driven: your strategies are focused on reducing expense line-items from the budget (for example: eliminating/suspending travel & training, deferring capital spending, reducing personnel expense, targeting reserves), and/or revenue-increase opportunities (fees, charges, rates, etc)

Program/service driven: your strategies start with identifying the programs that you're open to changing, focusing on programs that need more resources to respond to COVID, programs that could be provided at a lesser level of service, programs that could be suspended (even temporarily), programs ideal for internal consolidation, programs up for consideration for partnership (internal, or external), etc

Results/outcome driven: your strategies start from a perspective of the outcomes most important to uphold in your community, and work towards ways to reduce expense (or generate revenue) that have minimal impact on the outcomes most important to your community.

Mandate driven: your strategies differentiate things you have to keep doing (because there's some variety of federal/state/provincial mandate to uphold) versus things you could afford to do differently (because of a lack of legal requirement)

Equity driven: your strategies are influenced primarily based on upholding a equitable access to services and value among the residents, businesses and visitors within your community.

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 7. Please include your contact information to receive report summaries (we will also post back into ICMA Connect)

Name

Organization

City/Town

State/Province

Country

Email Address

If you have any questions on the survey questions, please contact Chris Fabian at ResourceX at cfabian@resourcex.net