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RESEARCH REPORTS
Partner Report
In Their Own Words: Threats and Harassment Facing Local Officials
Bridging Divides Initiative – May 25, 2023
Building upon a recurring CivicPulse survey on threats and harassment toward local elected officials, the Bridging Divides Initiative conducted follow-up interviews with respondents who opted-in to further discussion. This report features the key findings from those interviews.
Finance
Partner Report
Meeting Demand for State and Local Public Finance Jobs
GFOA and Lightcast – September 30, 2022
This report from GFOA and Lightcast assesses the state of public sector finance employment. The report draws on demographic benchmarking of local government financial leadership conducted by CivicPulse earlier this year.
Leadership
Finance
Representation of Women in Local Government Financial Leadership
Christine Dean, Ayenna Cagaanan, Nathan Lee – June 5, 2022
New data release of the gender composition of the top finance/budgeting officials in over 21,000
local governments shows women are well represented in this important leadership position.
Leadership
Gender
Women Representation Among Top Appointed Officials in Local Government
Christine Dean, Ayenna Cagaanan, Nathan Lee – March 16, 2022
New data on the gender composition of local government top appointed officials reveals fewer than one in three local leaders are women.
Information Technology
CivicPulse Insights Report
2021 Software Adoption Trends in Local Government
CivicPulse Insights – November 10, 2021
In CivicPulse’s second annual report in this series, we show that public safety departments continue to lead the way in software acquisition. Meanwhile, there has been an overall decline in the prioritization of software in local government since the beginning of the pandemic.
Information Technology
CivicPulse Insights Report
IT Trends in Local Government: A National Survey of Local Decision Makers
CivicPulse Insights – September 29, 2021
In July 2021, CivicPulse surveyed a national sample of 584 local government officials to identify trends in IT in the wake of Covid-19 and to better understand their priorities looking ahead to 2022.
Infrastructure
CivicPulse Insights Report
Local Priorities for Infrastructure: What Do Local Governments Want?
CivicPulse Insights – June 15, 2021
What do local government policymakers want in a new infrastructure bill? CivicPulse surveyed over 400 local government officials to ask the infrastructure priorities for their local communities. The survey showed strong support for the inclusion of funding for roads, water, electricity, and broadband. In contrast, support for mass transit was limited to larger cities, and support for clean energy was highly divided by partisanship.
COVID-19
Partner Report
The New Normal Survey: COVID’s Lasting Legacy on Local Government
The Atlas, RouteFifty, CivicPlus, ELGL, and CivicPulse – May 1, 2021
CivicPulse partnered with The Atlas, Engaging Local Government Leaders, CivicPlus, and RouteFifty to survey of local government officials about the lasting impacts of COVID-19 on their governments. Close to 600 survey respondents provided their views on how their government has responded to the pandemic, and what changes are likely to remain.
Finance
CivicPulse Insights Report
COVID-19 Relief Funding for Local Government
CivicPulse Insights – March 5, 2021
What are the priorities for the new round of relief funding that local governments may receive in 2021? CivicPulse, in collaboration with Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, surveyed 494 local government officials to ask about the status of existing COVID-19 relief funding and where future funds might be spent. With new funds on the horizon, local governments are still spending existing funds and see priorities shifting and broadening.
Election Integrity
Partner Report
American Democracy at the Start of the Biden Presidency
Bright Line Watch – February 21, 2021
Bright Line Watch partnered with CivicPulse to survey 212 local government policymakers from across the country on election confidence to see whether local officials — who played a key role in the 2020 election — were more confident in the integrity of the electoral system than the general public.
Protests
CivicPulse Insights Report
Patterns of Local Protest against COVID-19 Restrictions across America
CivicPulse Insights – October 20, 2020
CivicPulse, in collaboration with Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, surveyed over 350 heads of local law enforcement agencies to find out where anti-lockdown protests were most common last spring. These findings could help predict where we might see them again this winter.
Software
CivicPulse Insights Report
The Role of Software in Local Government
CivicPulse Insights – August 26, 2020
In this report, we investigate the role of new software in local government, bringing to bear original data and analysis from a national survey of ten different leadership positions in township, municipality, and county governments all over the United States, including top appointed executives, heads of IT, and heads of 8 different types of departments/functions.
Finance
CivicPulse Insights Report
Local Government Spending Priorities in the Wake of COVID-19
CivicPulse Insights – June 22, 2020
How will COVID-19 affect local government budgets? CivicPulse asks local elected officials to project how spending will change over the next year across twelve different program and functional areas. This CivicPulse Insights report was developed with Power Almanac.
Compliance
CivicPulse Insights Report
Should We Open Up? Our National Survey of Local Government Officials Shows We May Not Have A Choice
CivicPulse Insights – May 1, 2020
CivicPulse asks local officials about how compliance with measures combatting COVID-19 might change over time, and how their governments have been promoting these measures.
Information
CivicPulse Insights Report
The Local Government Perspective on COVID-19
CivicPulse Insights – March 26, 2020
CivicPulse asks local officials about their response to the COVID-19 epidemic, how they are learning about the crisis, and what they wish the state and federal governments knew.
Guns
CivicPulse Insights Report
How Would Gun Laws Change If Local Governments Took Charge?
CivicPulse Insights – January 1, 2020
This CivicPulse report investigates the possibility of gun control on a local level, analyzing local policymakers responses to questions about gun ownership.
Global Governance
Partner Report
Elite Attitudes to Global Governance
Legitimacy in Global Governance Research Program (LegGov) – October 29, 2019
The Legitimacy in Global Governance research program (LegGov) is a research program that offers systematic, comparative analysis of legitimacy in global governance. This report investigates how people around the world — including American state legislators and staffers who took part in a CivicPulse survey — think about international institutions like the United Nations and World Trade Organization.
Finance
CivicPulse Insights Report
What Do Leaders in Local Government Think About the Budget?
CivicPulse Insights – July 31, 2019
This CivicPulse report provides analysis on their March 2019 survey about the budgetary concerns facing local governments. Take a look to see who thinks that the budget is a pressing issue and what solutions might help.
Influence
Partner Report
Democratic Values and Perceived Performance
Bright Line Watch – April 17, 2019
Drawing on a variety of data sources, including from a CivicPulse survey conducted in March 2019, this report by Bright Line Watch assesses how local policymakers, political donors, and the American public think about the performance of democracy in the United States. You may be surprised to find out who is the most optimistic.
Cities
Partner Report
Not 'What' but 'How': Understanding the Urban Innovation Cycle
NewCities and UrbanLeap – March 5, 2019
How do local government officials' approach urban innovation in their cities, and how are these processes different between municipalities?
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