Government leaders don’t need another reminder that budgets are tight, staffing is challenging, and expectations for public service continue to rise. The question isn’t whether efficiency matters. It’s where to find it.

Efficiency isn't just about eliminating manual work. The greatest opportunities often lie where work bogs down as information passes between people, departments, or systems.

Sustainable improvements in those areas increase efficiency and create capacity for better decisions, better service, and greater resilience.

Look Beyond Individual Tasks

Government work often slows when information doesn’t reach the right people at the right time.

Raytown, Missouri, experienced this in its permitting process. Residents frequently needed to visit city hall or call for status updates because routine requests required multiple interactions. In response, they implemented a digital licensing and permitting solution. As a result:

• Office visits declined 85%
• Postage expense declined 60%

Removing unnecessary interactions created lasting efficiency gains.

Information Should Move Once

The same principle applies inside government operations. Efficiency improves by reducing unnecessary waiting.

In Pickens County, Georgia, finance team members repeatedly entered invoice information and answered routine status questions because departments had limited visibility into the approval process. After modernizing the workflow with AI-assisted automation, invoice information was captured once, shared across the process, and tracked by everyone involved.

Instead of spending time tracking invoices or requesting updates, departments could see where work stood, while finance staff could focus on managing exceptions rather than routine status requests.

Connected Operations Create Lasting Capacity

The scale changes across jurisdictions, but the underlying challenge remains the same: moving information to the people who need it.

In North Carolina, the Administrative Office of the Courts’ processes had grown to span more than 40 separate applications, requiring staff and users to constantly bridge gaps between systems. Their unified case management system now supports more than 10 million electronic filings while giving court staff, attorneys, and the public direct access to information.

Begin by Asking Questions

Across government, the pattern is remarkably consistent. When information moves more easily, people spend less time coordinating work and more time accomplishing it.

Government leaders don’t have to solve every efficiency challenge at once. A practical place to begin is with three questions:

• Where are people repeating work?
• Where are unnecessary handoffs slowing decisions?
• Where are staff serving as the connection between disconnected systems?

Efficiency involves more than helping people work faster. It requires designing operations so work, information, and decisions move with fewer interruptions. When governments improve how work moves through the organization, they expand their capacity to deliver better outcomes for the communities they serve.

About the Author

Amber Ventimiglia is vice president and general manager of Tyler Technologies’ small- and mid-size local government ERP solutions business. She oversees strategy and operations to help local governments streamline operations, improve efficiency, and deliver better outcomes for residents, with a particular focus on helping small towns thrive.