Bloustein Local completes comprehensive 26-article series helping New Jersey municipal leaders navigate technology decisions.
After three years and 26 articles, Marc Pfeiffer, Associate Director and Senior Policy Fellow at Bloustein Local, has completed his “Tech Updates” series for New Jersey Municipalities magazine—a comprehensive guide designed to help local elected officials and administrators make sound technology decisions without becoming technology experts themselves.
The series, which began in October 2022, addressed a critical challenge: technology pervades every aspect of municipal operations, yet most local leaders lack the technical background to confidently evaluate vendors, assess risks, or establish appropriate policies.
The “Tech Fitness” Philosophy
“Just as physical fitness isn’t about becoming an Olympic athlete but maintaining health for daily life, tech fitness isn’t about becoming a technologist,” Pfeiffer writes in his final column. “It’s about ensuring your organization can protect and manage its systems to continue providing services to residents.”
The series covered essential topics in plain language: establishing trusted technology advisors, cybersecurity training and incident response, managing cloud services and third-party providers, navigating procurement challenges, hiring technology staff, implementing smart city sensors, addressing surveillance technology, public records access, and evaluating artificial intelligence tools.
A Rapidly Evolving Landscape
Over the course of three years, the technology landscape underwent a dramatic shift. Artificial intelligence moved from science fiction to practical reality, with municipalities now experimenting with or integrating AI tools. Cybersecurity threats have intensified, with ransomware attacks frequently making headlines. Cloud services became the default choice. Digital service expectations rose sharply, with residents expecting 24/7 online access in their own languages.
These changes reinforced the series’ core message: technology requires sustained investment, and constituents expect local governments to keep pace.
Enduring Principles
Pfeiffer offers guiding principles for local officials: keep humans in the loop so technology augments staff judgment, maintain focus on fundamentals like reliable backups and trained employees, ask questions fearlessly when advisors use jargon, recognize that technology decisions are policy decisions affecting privacy and equity, and build partnerships with peer communities to learn from shared experiences.
Accessing the Series
The entire Tech Fitness series is compiled here as a practical reference guide. While the regular column has concluded, Pfeiffer will continue to periodically write on technology and local government issues for the NJ State League of Municipalities and New Jersey Municipalities magazine. Local officials can reach him at marc.pfeiffer@rutgers.edu. Many of the articles reached a national audience of municipal officials through revised versions that appeared in Public Management, the magazine of the International City/County Management Association.
About Bloustein Local
Bloustein Local, part of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, provides research, technical assistance, and educational programs to support effective local government in New Jersey. The Tech Fitness series exemplifies this commitment to translating complex issues into actionable guidance for local officials.