Contact: John Keaten | (212) 784-5701 | JKeaten@GroupGordon.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.— The ICMA (International City/County Management Association) today announced the five individual and fourteen local government recipients of the 2018 Local Government Excellence Awards. The awards recognize creative contributions to professional local government management and demonstrate the value that the profession contributes to the quality of life in our cities, towns, and counties.

“We congratulate the recipients of our 2018 Local Government Excellence Awards,” said ICMA Executive Director Marc Ott. “The people and organizations recognized this year set the standard for innovation, effectiveness, and creativity in the cities, towns, counties, and academic institutions they lead. We thank them for their commitment to improving the lives of the constituents they serve every day.”

The ICMA Local Government Excellence Awards are conferred annually in two categories: Professional Awards, which recognize individual achievement by outstanding chief administrative officers, assistant administrators, academics, and others; and Program Excellence Awards, which are presented to local governments and their chief administrators in recognition of their innovative and successful programs.

ICMA’s 2018 Local Government Excellence Awards recipients will be honored at the Celebration of Service to the Profession on September 26 as part of the organization’s 104th Annual Conference, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Highlights from this year’s awards include:

• ICMA’s inaugural the Community Diversity and Inclusion Award Category. The three awards in this category (Under 10,000 population, 10,000 to 49,999 population, and 50,000 and greater population) recognize innovative and effective programs to promote diversity and inclusiveness within a community. ICMA created this category at the recommendation of the ICMA Task Force on Strengthening Inclusiveness in the Profession, a major effort of organization and industry-wide self-examination.

• Flossmoor, Illinois, was honored with the first Community Diversity and Inclusion Award (under 10,000 population) for its Connecting Our Community to be More Inclusive initiative. Begun as an effort to better live up to its own tagline—“Welcoming. Beautiful. Connected.”—Flossmoor’s local government sponsored a series of public events aiming to connect residents with each other and with local government leaders. The events were well-attended and serve as an example that communities of any size can take meaningful steps toward improving inclusivity.
• Tallahassee, Florida was given the Community Partnership Award (50,000 and greater population) for its Tallahassee Future Leaders Academy (TFLA). Meeting a need for structured activities for local youth, the program provides job readiness training, six weeks of employment, financial literacy and education, and exposure to nearby colleges. Since the program was started by Mayor Andrew Gillum in 2014, more than 600 youth have participated and have received a total of 1,058 professional certifications.
• Darin Atteberry, ICMA-CM, city manager of Fort Collins, Colorado, was given the Award for Career Excellence in Memory of Mark E. Keane. In a career defined by innovation, Atteberry has variously transformed his organization’s budget process, begun a municipal broadband utility, and set Fort Collins on the road to carbon neutrality. Atteberry is well known for his leadership style, encouraging staff to take their own initiative, relating to people on a personal level, relentlessly pursuing excellence, and challenging others to do the same.

Find a full list of awardees in the attached addendum, the forthcoming October 2018 issue of PM Magazine, and at https://icma.org/2018-icma-award-recipients

The 2018 ICMA Local Government Excellence Awards, as well as the Celebration of Service Ceremony, are sponsored by Dude Solutions, a leading provider of cloud-based operations management software to optimize facilities, assets, and workflow.

Awardees were chosen from 151 nominees by an independent, nineteen-member evaluation panel of local government professionals.

For more information about ICMA’s Local Government Excellence Awards, contact Joyce Lee at mailto:jlee@icma.org or (202) 962-3625.

About ICMA

ICMA, the International City/County Management Association, advances professional local government worldwide through leadership, management, innovation, and ethics. ICMA provides member support, publications, data and information, peer and results-oriented assistance, and training and professional development to more than 12,000 appointed city, town, and county leaders and other individuals and organizations throughout the world. The management decisions made by ICMA's members affect millions of individuals living in thousands of communities throughout the world, from small villages and towns to large metropolitan areas.

About Dude Solutions

Dude Solutions is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of operations management solutions to education, government, healthcare, senior living, manufacturing and membership-based organizations. For nearly two decades, Dude Solutions has inspired clients to create better work and better lives. We combine innovative, user-friendly technology with the world's smartest operations engine, empowering operations leaders to transform the most important places in our lives. Today, more than 11,000 organizations use our award-winning software to manage maintenance, assets, energy, safety, IT, events and more.