By Clay Pearson

I’ve served in professional local government management for 25 years. As the current city manager in Pearland, Texas, and previously Novi, Michigan, I constantly learn from private and public sector examples. Learning has included broad observations around the world, from Wellington to Cardiff to Sendai to Yangzhou.

I want to share what I learned while attending the United Kingdom’s (UK) local government executives symposium sponsored by the Local Government Chronicle in October 2015.

From colleagues and my own reading, I learned the UK is more highly centralized than anywhere I have seen. Local officials have so little say in the delivery of services and the mix of revenue and expenditures. The national government is busy looking at the cells in the leaves, let alone the trees in the forest.

In each UK city, local authorities have 10 times the number of elected officials than in the United States. UK councilors are elected with party labels. We prefer in the U.S. to think that water mains and roads do not care whether their recipients are Republicans or Democrats; local elected officials here are seldom elected with party affiliations.

The more I learn about the latest UK devolution agenda, the more tame it all sounds. Devolution involves the transfer of control and administration of local government services from the national government headquartered in London to communities where the services are provided and consumed.

There are fears over a “postal lottery” developing around healthcare under devolution. In the UK, however, this phrase is used to deny local officials the freedom to match housing, transit, and public safety considerations to local people.

In Michigan, we relied on the local property tax for half of our revenue and on state transfers for a quarter. Our seven nonpartisan elected officials set the local property tax rate. They did not go mad with a rate too high or low, as they knew the community and faced their neighbors at the grocery store. There were variances between communities, but each was tuned to local needs.

Throughout most of the U.S., local jurisdictions set their own budgets and can issue their own debt. That power to enter into long-term debt is largely successful in providing for long-term capital projects.

Texas is dynamic and “can-do.” Local governments there are almost entirely reliant on local resources. We see the fruits of our labors and must make up for local errors. The errors, however, are far fewer than they would be if there were strictures on us from Austin, Texas, or Washington, D.C.

We have a good mix in our local governments for the responsibilities. Child welfare, for example, is directed uniformly and professionally at the state level. Our local officials know the community and provide the policy oversight, allowing professional administrators to work with their teams of police, fire, public works, libraries, and parks.

We love the UK’s people and places. The variety is something to embrace and embolden.

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Reprinted with permission from the November 15, 2015, Local Government Chronicle, published by EMAP Publishing, London, England.