N.C. Local
Gov’t Service Corps project to help economically distressed
communities
North Carolina is considered one of the most progressive
states in the nation when it comes to incorporating the town/county
manager model of local government. All 100 counties in the state
have professional administration, but about one-third of the state’s
500-plus cities or towns do not, usually because of financial
constraints.
ASU graduate students Tyler
Beardsley, back left, and Amanda Reid are participating
in a pilot program called the N.C. Local Government Service
Corps. Also pictured is Dr. Marvin Hoffman, director of
Appalachian’s MPA program. Photo by University
Photographer Marie Freeman
Appalachian State University and UNC Chapel Hill’s School
of Government are sharing a $764,348 grant from the Golden Leaf
Foundation to try to address that problem. The grant is funding
a pilot a program called N.C. Local Government Service Corps that
will place four master of public administration (MPA) graduates
– two from each school – in economically distressed
communities in the state.
The grant will pay tuition and fees for each student’s second
year of graduate school, an assistantship and paid internship.
The grant will also fund their salary for two years, with each
participating town or city contributing 20 percent of the salary
cost. In return, the MPA graduates will provide hands-on economic
development and capacity building assistance in those communities
for a two-year period.
The program is modeled on the N.C. Teaching Fellows Program in
which recipients teach in the state to repay their scholarship
support.
“Many small towns are really in a difficult situation,”
said Dr. Marvin Hoffman, a professor in Appalachian’s Department
of Government and Justice Studies. Hoffman is director the university’s
MPA program, a position he has held for 18 years. “There
are more OSHA regulations to monitor, state audit requirements
and increased public participation in government,” Hoffman
said. Many small towns also are struggling with the downturn in
the local and national economy as well as localized problems,
such as the need for increased water and sewer capacity to attract
new industry.
“This project will provide students with the financial support
they need to get a good education, and they will receive practical
training in finding solutions to these problems through grant
writing and management,” Hoffman said. Second-year MPA students
Amanda Reid from Franklin County and Tyler Beardsley from Raleigh
are Appalachian’s participants in the pilot project.
Reid became interested in urban planning and development after
helping her mother, who was director of planning in Vance County.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in community and regional
planning at Appalachian, Reid entered the university’s MPA
program. “My interests were still in planning; however, I
was interested in seeing the different facets of local government.
The program at Appalachian has allowed me to do that,” she
said.
Reid applied for the N.C. Local Government Service Corps because
of the opportunities it will provide her as well as the community
she will serve.
“I am from rural North Carolina. The opportunity to serve
rural areas appeals to me because I can relate to the area, people
and concerns,” she said. “North Carolina currently has
220 communities with no professional management. The service corps
program, if continued, has the opportunity to assist many of these
communities. We have the opportunity to define goals with community
members and work hard to reach them.”
Beardsley also has an undergraduate degree in community and regional
planning from Appalachian. He has always been interested in working
in government. “I feel like it’s a good way to give
back to the community,” he said of his intended career.
“Participating in the service corps project is a good way
to get valuable experience,” Beardsley said. Planners in
larger cities send to work in specialized areas, but those in
smaller towns or communities are exposed to a range of needs.
“You have to do everything in a small town and you really
get to see everything a town does,” he said. “From what
I have learned at Appalachian, I’ll be able to communicate
with the board and community citizens about setting policies and
organizing government in a way that will benefit them the most.”
Communities have been invited to file applications to participate
in the pilot program and identify needs and projects that they
would like the students to address their communities were chosen.
Assignments will be made in March and the MPA graduates will begin
work in August.
“These communities are getting a lot of talent that they
would not be able to afford otherwise,” Hoffmann said. “The
service corps fellows will receive additional training beyond
what they typically would have gotten in the MPA program, and
the grant will support their participation in several short courses
offered by agencies, such as the N.C. School of Government and
the Urban Land Institute,” he said.
As part of the service corps grant, the students will have an
enhanced internship this summer with a local government manager
who will be their mentor. “MPA students at Appalachian are
very fortunate to have a strong network of supportive alumni,”
Reid said. “We interact with them at annual conferences and
are encouraged to contact them with questions and concerns. The
majority of our internships are with our alumni, as well.”
Appalachian has close to 120 city and county managers and their
assistants across the state, Hoffman said. “Four of these
managers will be chosen as mentors to give real world problem
solving advice to these students when they begin their two years
in the field,” he said.
The project will be evaluated at the end of three years to determine
if the program will continue.
“The outcome is easily worth what is being invested,”
Hoffman said. “These students have been trained in strategic
visioning and community leadership. They will work with local
elected officials and the business community, develop a sense
of what needs to be done and the order in which those things need
to be done, from how to make the town or county more attractive
in the sense of aesthetics or economic development to preventing
young people from leaving the area to work elsewhere.”
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