Local Leadership

Progress

Recent Progress: Increase

Workgroup efforts engaged more than 8,500 local officials over the last two years, through 38 training and education opportunities, including peer-to-peer learning exchanges, conference panels, roundtable discussions, newsletters, magazine articles, and blogs. A new website, Protect Local Waterways, was launched in 2023 to serve as a local government guide to the Chesapeake Bay to help inform and empower decisions at the local level. Over 3,500 unique visitors have engaged with the site since its launch, with over 500 resource downloads.

These engagement efforts may be reflected in the results of the most recent Local Leadership Survey, completed in 2024. This survey, distributed to local leaders, provides insight into local officials’ knowledge and capacity in comparison with the 2022 baseline survey results. Analysis of this outcome’s two indicators, knowledge of federal water regulations and reported conservation actions, shows a decrease in leaders’ uncertainty and an increase in reported actions, but these changes are not statistically significant.

Outlook: On Course

The workgroup’s recent achievements along with the positive trend in results from the 2024 survey represent an increase in progress. However, it is important to note that the change in officials’ self-reported knowledge and conservation actions are not large enough to offer clear evidence that engagement activities are succeeding; it is possible that the changes from 2022 to 2024 reflect differences in the surveyed community rather than resulting entirely from workgroup efforts.

Indicators

Knowledge of Federal Regulations: Improvement

The first indicator looks at what percent of local officials answered “uncertain” to questions about federal rules and regulations around water resources. Although the 2024 survey results are insufficient to assess the significance of the change, averaged responses show improvements in the knowledge of officials, both when assessed by community size and by time in office. Fewer smaller community officials (43%, down from 52%) reported uncertainty about federal water resource regulations. Similarly, those who served for less than two years showed lower uncertainty than in 2022 (46%, down from 55%). The uncertainty among officials of larger communities remained about the same (between 31.1% and 31.5%).

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For officials serving less than two years in office, uncertainty decreased from 55% in 2022 to 46% in 2024. The average percent uncertainty for officials in office for 11 or more years showed minimal change. However, the percentage for those in office 3-5 years and 6-10 fell from 43% (in both categories in 2022) to 37% and 39% respectively.

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Reported Conservation Actions: Improvement

The second indicator looks at the activities that local government leaders reported taking part in over the past three years. There was a slight increase overall in self-reported actions undertaken on water quality or water resources in the 2024 survey. Reports of implementing or enforcing local rules or regulations rose from 47% in 2022 to 61% in 2024, while reports of applying for grants or other funding for projects increased from 61% to 70%. The survey results showed no change in activity for “on the ground” projects to improve water quality (54% in both years). The only decrease in conservation activities indicated by the survey was in the implementation of new rules or regulations, which fell from 50% in 2022 to 44%.

Learn About Factors Influencing Progress

Management Strategy

To achieve this outcome, Chesapeake Bay Program partners have committed to:

Developing, enhancing and expanding training and leadership programs for local officials.
Increasing peer-to-peer knowledge transfer among local officials.
Improving the transfer of knowledge to local officials.
Identifying and improving key knowledge and information sources for local officials.

Monitoring and assessing progress toward the outcome will occur through a survey of local leaders.

As part of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s partnership-wide implementation of adaptive management, progress toward this outcome was reviewed and discussed by the Management Board in February of 2023.

Download Management Strategy (.pdf)

Logic & Action Plan

Chesapeake Bay Program partners have committed to taking a series of specific actions that will support the management approaches listed above.

Ongoing

Building relationships with local government trusted sources in each jurisdiction.
Scaling up and diversifying regionally-tailored training and capacity building opportunities by developing proposals for forums, conference panels, webinars, etc. on relevant topics.
Conducting peer-to-peer learning exchange tours for local officials and exploring new opportunities for peer-to-peer knowledge transfer.
Assisting relevant goal implementation teams and workgroups with translating key content to their local government audiences and with engagement through trusted sources.
Organizing themed Local Leadership Workgroup meetings to identify key content on priority topics, distributing resources via the Watershed Currents newsletter.
Supporting the development of a report through the Local Government Technical Assistance Inventory and Gap Analysis project. Preparing to share program inventory, identified gaps, and recommendations to fill gaps with LLWG, LGAC, GIT 6, Management Board and other interested parties.

Recently Completed

2023-2024

Directly engaged 700+ local officials through peer-to-peer learning exchanges, roundtable discussions, conference panel sessions, etc.
Indirectly engaged 8,000+ local officials through newsletters, magazine articles, blogs, etc.
Worked with Green Fin Studio and the Bay Program Web Team to create ProtectLocalWaterways.org and additional educational modules housed there, as well as host a train-the-trainer workshop.
Piloted a partnership with local government planners — via a booth at planners’ conferences and sessions at a state-level planners’ conference — to increase capacity around water resources issues.
Conducted peer-to-peer tours in six of the watershed jurisdictions (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, West Virginia and Virginia). Three additional tours are planned for 2025.

2021-2022

Directly engaged 1,300+ local officials through peer-to-peer learning exchanges, roundtable discussions, conference panel sessions, etc.
Indirectly engaged 9,500+ local officials through newsletters, magazine articles, blogs, etc.
Conducted peer-to-peer tours in four of the watershed jurisdictions (Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware) and planned tours for two additional watershed jurisdictions (West Virginia and New York) in 2023.
Held webinars and conference sessions attended by 900+ planners, with 200+ watching webinar recordings.
Established partnerships with 12+ trusted sources, including Maryland Association of Counties (MACo), Maryland Municipal League (MML), Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS), Pennsylvania Municipal League (PML), Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs (PSAB), County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP), Virginia Association of Counties (VACo), Virginia Municipal League (VML), Delaware League of Local Governments (DLLG), Upper Susquehanna Coalition (USC), Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), and the Eastern Panhandle Regional Planning and Development Council (Region 9).

Learn About Logic & Action Plan

Participating Partners

The Enhancing Partnering, Leadership and Management Goal Implementation Team leads the effort to achieve this outcome. It works in partnership with the Fostering Stewardship Goal Implementation Team.

Participating partners include:

State of Delaware
State of Maryland
State of New York
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Commonwealth of Virginia
State of West Virginia
District of Columbia
Chesapeake Bay Commission
US Environmental Protection Agency
Local Government Advisory Committee
Local Leadership Workgroup