Don’t You Want My Help? Volunteer Involvement and Management in Local Government

• DOI: 10.1177/02750740211002343
• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Date: 01 July 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740211002343

American Review of Public Administration

2021, Vol. 51(5) 331 –344

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740211002343

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Article

Since the late 1970s, struggling with fiscal stress has been

the “new normal” in public administration. In the 2010s,

U.S. local governments came under fiscal stress brought

about by the “the twin pressures” of the Great Recession

combined with devolution, that is, decreases in aid from

higher levels of government and increasing local responsi-

bilities (Kim, 2018, p. 44). Mohr and colleagues (2010, p.

894) find that at the same time they must deal with economic

downturn and maintain service levels and meet additional

service demands,

Local governments also face long-term declines in state and

federal support and resistance to expanding traditional revenue

sources such as property taxes or exploring new revenue sources

such as user fees and charges. These governments feel pressure

to find more efficient ways to produce necessary services.

One might have thought that after more than 40 years of

dealing with fiscal stress, little possible could be new about

it, and the normality of coping would have become routine.

However, the global health pandemic stemming from

COVID-19, which began in 2020 and continues at this writ-

ing, threatens both assumptions. “The unprecedented double

blow of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing steep reces-

sion challenges local governments in profound ways,” write

Benton and colleagues (2020, p. 28). Based on in-depth

interviews with 30 local officials, their study (Benton et al.,

2020, p. 31) reveals

a very demanding and complicated situation for government

officials at all levels (but particularly city and county officials)

who are constantly on the frontlines and must simultaneously

balance the need to provide a large number of vital and desirable

services, insure the safety and health of their citizens, protect the

interests of businesses, keep down the cost of government

operations while practicing efficiencies and guaranteeing

program effectiveness operations, interact with other levels of

government, and plan for the future of their community.

1002343ARPXXX10.1177/02750740211002343The American Review of Public AdministrationBrudney and Yoon

research-article2021

1University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA

2Syracuse University, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nara Yoon, Public Administration, Maxwell School of Citizenship and

Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 400 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244,

USA.

Email: nyoon@syr.edu

Don’t You Want My Help? Volunteer

Involvement and Management in

Local Government

Jeffrey L. Brudney1 and Nara Yoon2

Abstract

The global COVID-19 health pandemic has put extraordinary pressure on already fiscally strapped local governments. As

local jurisdictions search for strategies to meet rising service expectations with declining resources, use of volunteers would

seem to offer significant advantages. This study examines the involvement of volunteers to deliver services in all county

governments in one U.S. state, as well as the factors that explain the extent of use of this service approach. Our analysis is

based on information collected from a survey of county government officials working in 10 service domains, supplemented

by demographic and other data drawn from a variety of sources. To arrive at valid estimates of volunteer involvement in the

delivery of county services, we introduce a novel methodology that corrects our survey data for possible sample and response

biases based on a calibration estimator using auxiliary information. The results of our inquiry reveal a higher use of volunteers

to deliver services by county governments than suggested by the literature. The findings show, moreover, that counties

with higher per capita income, greater percentage of residents attaining a bachelor’s degree or higher formal education, and

lower unemployment are likely to involve volunteers in the delivery of more services, as are those county governments with

greater per capita spending and per capita property tax revenues. These results have important implications in regard to the

capacity of local governments to use volunteers, which we treat in the Discussion.

Keywords

local government, volunteer involvement, volunteer management, survey estimation