Budgets Don't Fill Potholes

That is the uncomfortable truth at the center of modern public life. We pass record budgets. We announce record investments. We celebrate grants with long press releases and longer speeches. Then months go by, sometimes years, and the street looks the same, the park looks the same, the transit stop looks the same.

The money is real. The progress is not.

We keep calling this a money problem. It is not. It is a capacity problem. The limiting factor is not how many dollars show up in the budget. The limiting factor is how many people can turn those dollars into work, how well they are trained, and what tools they have in their hands.

The myth of the empty wallet

Listen to almost any local meeting and you will hear some version of the same line: We just cannot afford it.

Sometimes that is true. Often it is not.

For many communities, the problem is stranger than that. The money exists in the plan. It sits in a capital account or inside a federal grant or on a spreadsheet labeled for roads, water, housing, public safety. The dollars are there. What is missing is the ability to move the dollars through the system fast enough to matter.

Think about what it takes to do something simple like repaving one neighborhood street.

Someone has to design the project, write the specifications, and decide where the work begins and where it ends. Someone has to write the request for bids, answer questions from contractors, and close the deal. Someone has to schedule crews, arrange traffic control, talk to the neighbors, inspect the work, pay the invoices, and close out the project in the accounting system.

Now imagine trying to do that across hundreds of streets, or water lines, or building repairs, with vacant positions in the very offices that write the contracts, process the invoices, and manage the work. That is what many towns and cities are facing.

The money is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is what the private sector would call capacity. Enough people with the right skills, using basic tools, focused on getting things done rather than simply getting through the day.

Why more money alone disappoints

We keep making the same mistake. We pour more money into the top of the funnel without widening the funnel itself. Then we express shock when not much more comes out the bottom.

When people see projects stuck in planning for years, or hear that their town has not spent the funds it already has, they do not blame staffing charts or procurement rules. They blame government as an idea. They decide that public promises are theater.

This is corrosive. Every time we announce a big new initiative and fail to deliver visible change, we do not just waste dollars. We burn trust.

There is a simple reason this keeps happening. It is politically easier to vote for a budget than to invest in the people and systems needed to use that budget well. It is easier to blame outside forces than to admit that the city or county does not have enough plan reviewers, contract specialists, project managers, inspectors, or frontline crew leaders.

Capacity has three parts

If you want to see progress, stop staring only at the budget line and start asking three questions.

Do we have enough people. Do we have the right skills. Do we have simple tools that make the work easier instead of harder.

People

In many local governments the most understaffed departments are not police or fire. They are the less visible offices that move projects from idea to reality. Planning. Procurement. Public works. Information technology.

These teams have vacancy rates that would shut down a private company. Job postings sit open for months because pay is not competitive, the hiring process stretches on forever, and the job descriptions read like punishment rather than purpose.

At the same time, expectations keep climbing. Federal funding waves require new reporting. Residents expect real time updates about everything from trash pickup to road closures. Elected officials want dashboards and metrics.

When you pile all that on a skeleton crew, something has to give. Often it is the very work that residents care about most. They do not experience the missing staff. They experience the unfilled pothole.

Skills

Capacity is not just about headcount. It is about what people know how to do. Public service is complicated. You need people who understand legal constraints, community needs, technical standards, and political reality. You also need people who can manage projects, use data, communicate clearly, and adapt when the world changes.

Too often we treat training as a luxury rather than a core function. Budgets cover the cost of concrete but not the development of the civil servant who decides where that concrete goes.

We under invest in project management. We ignore the craft of public communication. We leave new staff to sink or swim inside systems that veterans barely understand.

Then we wonder why projects drift, why schedules slip, why the same mistakes repeat.

Tools

Today, most residents live in a world where they can track a package across the continent on their phone. Then they try to report a broken sidewalk and get routed through voicemail, paper forms, and shrugging.

The distance between those two experiences is not mainly a question of budget. It is a question of tools.

A road crew does not need cutting edge artificial intelligence to patch a street. It needs a work order system that actually works, a map that shows the full picture, and a way to communicate with residents that does not involve a stapled sheet of paper on a telephone pole.

Many public workers still bounce between old software, shared spreadsheets, and piles of paper. Every hand off is a chance for delay. Every delay is another day that the resident drives through the same crater.

Simple, boring tools can change that. Work management systems that are easy to use. Shared maps that show every project in one place. Text alerts that tell neighbors when crews will be on their block.

These are not lavish expenditures. They are basic tools of modern work. Yet they are often the first things cut and the last things defended.

The politics of capacity

Talking about capacity forces a different kind of honesty from leaders.

If you say the town cannot afford a new program, the conversation ends. If you say the town cannot staff a new program, the conversation begins. It invites questions. Why not. What would it take. Which positions are missing. How long does hiring really take.

That is uncomfortable but necessary.

Capacity is less glamorous than money. Voters understand large funding announcements. They do not celebrate a new procurement analyst or a better permit system. No one cuts a ribbon when the accounting office finally has enough staff.

Yet that is exactly where the real leverage sits.

A single skilled project manager can move millions of dollars into actual construction. A well trained front desk worker can prevent frustration that would otherwise turn into deep cynicism. A functional service request system can make every crew hour more productive.

Money without capacity is a promise without a plan.

What building capacity looks like

If you are an elected official, administrator, or engaged resident, what you can do is surprisingly concrete.

First, treat vacancies as emergencies. A road crew with one open position gets attention. A finance office with two open positions quietly absorbs the hit until the entire capital program slows. That is backwards. The offices that move money into projects should be among the most protected.

Second, build a capacity budget alongside your capital budget. When you announce ten million for infrastructure, show the public the staff positions and tools that will turn that ten million into real projects on the ground. Name the people, not just the projects.

Third, shorten the distance between residents and the people who can fix things. The resident should not need to know which department has jurisdiction over a broken curb or a failing street light. The government should route that responsibility internally and keep the resident updated until the problem is resolved.

Fourth, invest in simple tools that respect the time of public workers. Ask frontline staff what slows them down. Listen when they tell you that they are entering the same information into three systems. Then fix that problem before you chase new technology.

Finally, protect the boring work. The weekly coordination meeting that keeps projects aligned. The training session that teaches a new hire how to navigate the maze. The afternoon that a crew chief spends updating a map rather than racing from call to call. These things never trend on social media. They save months of delay.

The hard part is cultural

Capacity is not just structure. It is culture.

If every new idea is greeted with the phrase we do not have the staff, nothing changes. If every suggestion for a better tool triggers a story about the last implementation that went wrong, progress stalls.

A culture of capacity says something different. It says we will focus on doing a few things well, and we will staff those things to succeed. It says we will own the basics. Clean streets. Safe water. Reliable services. Honest communication.

That culture is contagious. When people see public workers who are respected and equipped, they are more willing to pay for the next round of improvements. When staff see that leaders will stand up for the back office as fiercely as they stand up for the front page, they invest more of themselves in the work.

The opposite is contagious too. Understaffed offices. Outdated tools. Constant crisis. That is how you burn through good people and replace them with no one.

Budgets do not fill potholes

The next time you hear someone say that the city or county needs more money, ask a follow up question.

If the money arrived tomorrow, who would actually spend it. Who would write the contract. Who would manage the work. Who would answer the calls when residents ask what is happening on their street.

If there is no clear answer, then the real problem is not just on the revenue side of the ledger. It is on the capacity side.

Budgets are expressions of intent. They tell us what we say we value. Capacity is the expression of seriousness. It tells us what we are willing to build in order to keep our word.

When residents say they are tired of hearing about plans and grants and initiatives, they are not rejecting public investment. They are asking a simple question. Can you actually do what you say you will do.

The only honest response is to look beyond the dollar signs and into the offices where people quietly move projects from concept to concrete. That is where the future of public trust will be decided.

Budgets do not fill potholes. People do. If we want better streets, better parks, better transit, better government, we have to stop pretending that money alone will save us and start doing the everyday work of building capacity.

---

About Andrew Flynn

Andrew is a Mt. Lebanon commissioner, public finance and policy expert, volunteer firefighter, and community advocate committed to building safer, more resilient, and better-connected neighborhoods. Through public service and hands-on experience, Andrew works every day to make a positive impact in our community.

Keep Exploring

Stay informed with the latest updates and news on Andrew’s work and campaign by visiting the News section. Want to learn more about Andrew’s background and values? Head over to Meet Andrew. Ready to make a difference? Find out how you can take action and get involved on the Get Involved page.