This Week in Gov Tech

Welcome back to another episode of In Case You Missed It. It's been a wild few weeks, lots of market activity, lots of movements, and we've got a lot more guests planned for you in future week episodes. This week we thought we'd start with just some analysis as we kind of look at the landscape of everything that's happening and all the bigger macro trends that are impacting state and local government. Joe, uh, Morris has kind of come up with some really interesting thoughts that we thought we could riff on a little bit and talk about some of the key things that we're tracking in the market. So Joe, I'll let you break it down and we'll dive into a topic from that point forward.

Sure.

I mean, the first thing that caught my attention this week was the eviction moratorium, right? That was set to expire this week. Thankfully, it was extended. So now states and localities, they have until October 3rd for those jurisdictions that are hardest hit by the Delta variant until that eviction moratorium were to expire. Had it expired though, you have to begin to wonder what would the impact be to states and localities in terms of their social services programs, caseloads. We're heading into a period of time now where we're seeing the Delta variant impact a number of states that could have collided with— what was it, 9 to maybe as many as 11 million people that are behind on their rent that could have been evicted? Could have been a pretty nasty scenario. Then combining that too, With what does that mean to sheriff's departments and the other government entities that would be impacted by having to enforce these laws? So that was one piece that caught my attention this week. Thankfully, again, maybe October 3rd gives them a little bit more breathing room to figure out what they would do when this becomes a reality. The second is on the school front. My daughter just started school yesterday, but it had me, had me thinking with the Delta variant and what we're seeing in schools with school kids' age coming back. What does this mean to kids that are under 12 that can't be vaccinated? What do school district leaders have to plan for in terms of that flexible response, hybrid learning, all the money that we're seeing thrown at broadband to close the digital divide? What impact could that have over the next 3 to 4 weeks as schools across the country begin to open up? And what does that mean to— in terms of school reclosures? And then the third and final piece I think that I saw is this opioid settlement. $26 billion that was to be awarded now to the states and localities. States have 30 days from this settlement being enacted to sign on to want to receive those funds. I saw a state like California, my home state, receiving $2.34 billion from that funding stream. You have to wonder what the tech implications are there too. Again, for Health and Human Services, things like prescription drug monitoring programs, do we see these funds be used to where technology can have an opportunity? So again, those are just some of the things that caught my attention this week.

Yeah, I think that's a great list. I mean, I think starting first with the, you know, eviction moratorium ending, you know, this is kind of a wider, you know, fiscal issue for cities that I think we haven't really seen the end of. You know, these, these protections were put in place during the pandemic. Now, as we start to see the eventual expiration of that, as well as some of the aid that comes along, With that, it's going to be interesting to see the implications of that on not just housing and kind of, you know, available rent properties, but also just, you know, municipal finances in general as you start to look at that. I think, you know, as we get into even January ad valorem property tax collections, you know, trying to understand what those rates are going to be, you know, now kind of being in that post-pandemic era, that's going to be another interesting thing to follow for municipalities. And I know that there's several that are kind of in a holding pattern on that as they look at, you know, the uncertainty ahead there.

Yeah. Thinking more about this, this eviction issue, you know, the one question that pops into my mind, and maybe you guys can, can riff more in answering this question, but I just wonder what the role of technology is going to be when this all really comes to a head. You know, immediately I start thinking of data, you know, how can data be used to either As a tool to identify people who need to be evicted or those who don't need to be evicted. Do you guys have any thoughts about the role of technology here?

Well, I think first is that you saw that the various federal stimulus packages provide rent relief. Government's got to do a better job in some cases on getting those rent relief funds into the hands of the individuals. There are governments that are behind on issuing those funds. I think of what are the, what are the roles where technology can play a role in solving that before we get to the eviction? How can we— how can technology play a role in preventing people from being evicted? That's where I'd start.

Yeah, I think it's a good point. And I mean, I think it's how we design technology too, right? We saw a lot of technology deployed, um, over the last, you know, 18 months or so, but it's like, how much of that was really designed around the actual needs of people and constituents and, you know, those that are struggling with some of these problems? And I think outside of digitizing services and putting them online, the knowledge aspects of navigating some of these complexities around some of these programs that were stood up and what happens when they're turned off, I think, is kind of that missing piece. So in addition to the data component you talked about, Jed, I think it's the context of the data and even just breaking down the legalese. I mean, Joe, what's the infrastructure bill? 2,400 pages, the new infrastructure bill that's there.

Yeah.

So it's like, how do you make that accessible to the average person and government leader today? How do you break down the complexity, add context, make it consumable? Mobile and operationalize that level of information. And I kind of see that as the next step, right? We've transformed services, we've put them online, we've connected, you know, nice shiny front ends with complex legacy back ends. We've taken data silos and we've broken them down. Now, how do we make them more useful? How do we make them more experiential? How do we design for the actual stakeholders or people that are using that, which may not always be a citizen? It may also be a government employee that's grappling with trying to balance, you know, the workload that they have right now. with all of this going on.

Wonderfully said. I think that some of these rent relief programs, whether you're a landlord or a tenant, are terribly hard to navigate. And that's an opportunity where technology can play a role both in automation but making it much easier to get in front of the people that need government the most.

All right, so let's break down the school impact. So just when we thought that our kids were going to be able to go back and have a normal schooling in person, now we start to see this kind of rising to the forefront. Again, schools grappling with what this is going to look like. A lot of the issues of the past are still at play here. Broadband and connectivity, really looking at, you know, how to allow people to have access to that. And we still haven't fundamentally redefined the way that we do virtual instruction as well. So a lot of challenges here. What do you guys make of that?

You know, it's interesting. I think you look at the Fed chair this past week said, hey, I wouldn't be surprised if we see schools delay reopening. We don't think it's going to have a major impact on the economy. But it's going to have an impact on parents, it's going to have an impact on those kids. And while there's a tremendous amount of federal funds coming into K through 12 right now for connected devices and connectivity, you have to wonder how much work has been made to be prepared for that first day of school when there was so much pressure on schools to reopen for physical instruction.

Yeah, when I think about this, this whole situation with the schools potentially You know, delaying their doors being opened. There are 2 things that come to mind, and they're both about not thinking in the short term. It's about thinking in the long term. So on one hand, you have broadband that's going to play a big role if distance learning has to continue to a great extent. And that brings up the question, well, what kind of broadband infrastructure do we need? And that— and so what it does is, is it brings to light this issue of the FCC's current definition of broadband, 25 down, 3 up, which I just, just talked to a researcher recently, and he said that that is outdated at this point, that upload speeds have become so much more important during the pandemic because more people are uploading information through video conferencing tools, whether they're working from home, whether they're trying to learn from home, whether they're trying to do telehealth. So that's, that's one point where we have to think about the long term. How are we investing in broadband? We have to invest in technologies that give us higher upload speeds in addition to download speeds. Then the second thing is, is this Delta variant really the last leg of the virus? Could there possibly be an even worse strain coming down the road? You know, right now we're seeing a lot of younger people going into hospitals. Could there be another strain that's even deadlier to younger people? And so this is all kind of hinging on the vaccination effort. You know, if not enough people get vaccinated, then such a strain could come about.

Yeah, I think it's a really good point. And I think, you know, your remarks stress the importance of adaptability and these jurisdictions being adaptable. I completely agree with the broadband and kind of connectivity side of things. I think, you know, we struggle with definitions on what that is, you know, across the board. The FCC is going got their own, the private sector has their own, industry consortiums have their own on kind of what the base requirements are. And I think there's so much innovation that's happening in that space too. We have to start to connect the dots and really look at kind of the regional approaches and even statewide approaches to it. I mean, look at like Starlink and the work that's happening around taking low Earth orbit satellites and providing internet access that way. How do we start to do this instead of creating a bunch of silos with the service areas that we had in the past? How do we collectively solve this as a state, as a nation? And I think that's kind of the missing piece to me. It shouldn't be, you know, a service area type approach. It should be something we think broader and a little bit more holistically about how to do it. When you look at some of the other countries that have done this right, you know, I spent some time in China a few years ago, you know, basically it's centralizing, not control of it, but it's the approach. Everyone's doing it together and they're finding a way to connect the dots and they don't see it as proprietary. They see it as a way to, you know, solve a major problem together. And so I think, you know, standardization and those types of things fall in line That's great.

And then the last thing I hit on was the opioid settlement. You know, admittedly, I wasn't paying too much attention to it until recently, but $26 billion are about to hit the coffers in state and local governments that sign on to the settlement. You know, look, the opioid crisis is something that Governing has covered quite, you know, frequently over the years, but there was a number of state and local government lawsuits Roughly around 4,000 in both federal and state court. This settlement looks to resolve, I think, pretty much all of those. States have 30 days to sign on to the deal. Local governments have 150 days to join, but it will provide substantial funding to those localities and states that sign on. And there very well may be a technology opportunity here to help address this very important issue.

Yeah, and I think, you know, it's still a major issue for states. And even though, you know, focus was kind of shifted over the last 18 months, I think this is something that agencies should really follow closely. It's been fun to look at some of the new technologies that are emerging here to try to combat, you know, this epidemic. And, you know, they were also applied to COVID, like Biobot Analytics and others. But I think this is a wider spread issue that agencies still need to keep their eyes on and kind of, you know, leveraging this new funding as a vehicle as well.

I think what's so interesting about this opioid settlement is that if you look at data that we have right now on what states are planning to do with the funds. So many of them have been relatively silent about this. And so it really just sparks my curiosity in the coming months. You know, what are these states going to ultimately do? And, you know, is there a reason why they wouldn't be interested in it for whatever reason? I don't know, it's just, it's just a really fascinating topic that I think has a lot of unanswered questions.

Yep, lots, lots more to cover here, so we'll continue to bring people on. We'd love to hear from you as well to kind of talk about these issues. So if there's, you know, other questions that you have as we dive into these topics over the weeks to come, let us know. You can reach out to us, you know, comment in the chat, and we'll see you next week, same time, same place. Thanks for joining us for another In Case You Missed It. Thanks, guys. We'll talk to you again in a week.

Take care.