Empowering Cities and Towns: The Baker-Polito Approach to Local Collaboration and Capacity Building

Cities and towns are at the frontline of delivering services that impact residents’ lives every day – but to deliver such services successfully, local leaders must often navigate complex funding opportunities, rules, and regulations set by the state. Having served as local selectmen, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito understood firsthand how critical – and challenging – the state-local relationship can be and promised to make the state’s partnership with cities and towns a top priority of their administration. As one of his first acts in office, Governor Baker named the Lieutenant Governor as champion for municipal issues across state government, thereby kicking off an innovative approach to strengthening and empowering the state’s 351 cities and towns. By the end of two terms, the Baker-Polito administration’s new approach both improved localities’ abilities to deliver for their residents and built strong relationships and trust that enabled rapid state-local collaboration in response to crises such as COVID-19.