Public managers are often asked to “trim the fat” in times of revenue scarcity. Unfortunately, there is no line item in the budget called “fat,” so managers will need to look elsewhere. Very often, organizations build slack into their business processes in the form of non-value-added activities. A formal business process improvement methodology can find and remove these sources of waste. One process improvement method that holds particular promise for local governments is “Lean.” Lean refers to a collection of principles and methods that focuses on identifying and eliminating non-value-added activity (waste) involved in producing a product or delivering a service to customers. GFOA has produced a free white paper that describes the Lean process improvement method, how to move forward with Lean, and the experiences of local governments that have used Lean.