Serious State Capacity Notes for April 1

This is not an April Fools post, but it does feature an amazing April. Plus, becoming a serious country again, and what AI will do for intergovernmental software collaboratives.

I am not sure I love the “round up” framing I started this format with, so I’m playing around with this series, but I’ve got some great links for you on this beautiful spring day.

A gov nerd’s dream collab: Kevin Hawickhorst x Jordan Schneider

Yes, Jordan Schneider had Kevin Hawickhorst on ChinaTalk. To talk about the history of the civil service. And entymologists. And the Bureau of Soils. And most of all, about becoming a serious country again. I’m not even going to summarize it here. Just listen to it. (And if you want more on this, here’s Kevin’s long piece in American Affairs.)

In a much less enlightening episode, but also delightful (at least for me), I joined Jordan as well. I could talk to that guy all day.

Shamelessly stolen from ChinaTalk. Topographical engineers in Yorktown, VA, Camp Winfield Scott. May 1862. Source.

Where’s Waldo? (sorry, couldn’t resist): the Intergovernmental Software Collaborative finds a new home — and maybe a new moment

I’ve been loosely tracking the Intergovernmental Software Collaborative since Waldo Jaquith and Robin Carnahan wrote their original paper on how states could pool resources to create the software they need back in 2020¹. The news last week that the effort is moving from Georgetown University’s Beeck Center to the Council of State Governments caught my eye. It will now be part of the National Center for Interstate Compacts, which already supports more than 250 interstate compacts and recently developed CompactConnect, an open-source data system for state licensing agencies.

The concept of intergovernmental software collaboratives has always seemed like it should work. State officials are often quite frustrated with the choices in the market (or lack thereof) for functions, and complain that vendors abuse their monopoly or near-monopoly positions to sell lousy software at exorbitant prices. And there are also functions that are just so niche that a commercial offering may not make sense. But states have similar needs, and could band together to fund the development of their own software products, and be in control of the development roadmaps. They could get more of what they want, tailored to their needs, for less. In theory.

Examples of where this is working include AASHTOWare for transportation project design and management. It’s billed as “a unique and powerful enterprise software suite designed by transportation professionals for transportation professionals,” as it has users in most states. Or HURREVAC, which helps local emergency managers decide when to issue evacuation orders. Or WinGAP CAMA (the “Win” in its name clues you into its origins in the 1980s), which is actually a county collaborative, allowing 145 of the 159 counties in Georgia to do property tax appraisal for only $2,000 in dues a year (at least back in 2019.) When you’ve got 145 counties, $2,000 each gives you enough a year to keep the software updated, apparently. There are a lot of needs in government like this, and not as many software collaboratives as you’d think.

I believe when I’ve talked to Waldo about this in the past, it’s governance he’s pointed to as the biggest reason we don’t have more of these. Governance of shared codebases can be tricky, but there are best practices that states and other entities can learn from. I mean, look at WinGAP CAMA, which has been making 145 counties happy since 1987. The news that the Intergovernmental Software Collaborative is moving into a new home with so much expertise in shared governance is promising. I’m excited to see what happens.

But I’m also curious about these collaboratives in the era of AI. The tiny budget of WinGAP CAMA (and probably a few others) notwithstanding, the cost of building and maintaining software has always been a big barrier here. Now, agentic coding tools are collapsing that cost. If states can build or customize at a fraction of previous cost, the case for shared development gets stronger, and the threshold for participation gets lower. The move to the Council of State Governments, with its direct relationships with state leaders and its existing infrastructure for interstate cooperation, sounds like it could be a big unlock, but I’m really curious to imagine what, for example, “software designed by transportation professionals for transportation professionals” looks like when it’s literally designed by transportation professionals, with the software developers needed less and less. With AI, will every transportation department and assessors office just roll their own? How might AI help with the governance issues as well?

The outside-in play for the AI era

April Harding, former director of digital services for the IRS and current We the Doers co-founder, got spicy on LinkedIn last week with a project that reminds of the good old days when Carl Malamud would do crazy shit like putting the SEC EDGAR records online himself, for free. He then essentially harassed the agency to take the website over — which, after many protestations that it would be entirely impossible or hilariously expensive to do so, it did, permanently. The classic outside-in play.

April picked up the Malamud mantel and did in one day what OMB failed to do in 15 years: produce a complete Federal Program Inventory, using ChatGPT. Her diagnosis of why OMB was slow was less about the failure to use currently available technology, and more about a “red ink” leadership culture where executives wait for someone else to produce a first draft before they’ll engage. Nobody owns the blank page. But Harding’s play here follows the Malamud logic: force the draft into existence from outside, and suddenly “prove me wrong” becomes the only thing left to argue about.

AI makes this kind of move vastly cheaper and faster. It could be on the verge of a real renaissance.

We the Doers: doing good things

Speaking of April, (and happy April 1 to all who celebrate!), I don’t know how I missed April and her colleagues’ report How to Achieve Real Government Reform in a Post-DOGE World, which came out in January. It was great to get caught up on the work of this new group, which bills itself as “a civil servant-informed, non-partisan movement to deliver the government the American people deserve.” There were places in the report where I wish they’d taken the ideas further (feedback loops with Congress need to be about more than just getting input on bills up front) and where I have a little skepticism. Will this ultimately be a citizen-led movement? I’m more bought on in it being a civil-servant led movement, which they already seem to be building infrastructure for) but overall, this was a great read. And the organizing here is music to my ears. I’ve long felt that we are vastly underestimating the power of public servants (former and current) working in their personal capacities as a lever for fixing government.

I’m already a big fan of their LinkedIn feed, where I learned about HR 5438, the Incentivize Savings Act, which was apparently introduced in September. It would allow agencies to retain 50 percent of unexpended prior-year funds for modernization and innovation initiatives. We the Doers ran a quick poll, and only six people responded. Let’s get these changemakers more attention so more folks respond to these polls. And I’m very curious about the three people who responded that they wouldn’t relinquish their agency’s ability to ask for a year-on-year funding increase in exchange for being able to retain 51 percent of unexpended prior-year funds. I guess every agency is different. Incentives matter.

I’m eager to hear much more from We the Doers.

1. The original paper appears to 404, but I have a copy of it somewhere if anyone wants it. It was originally here: https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/creating-a-state-software-collaborative/