By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

At Harvard Kennedy School last week, officials from all levels of government exchanged ideas and experiences during a symposium on government innovation, from developing new solutions to how to implement those solutions to the problems that government must tackle. The key word there is “must.” Whatever the issue—climate change, mental health, the job market—government has an obligation not only to respond but to lead. Government has a critical role to play in shaping the future of its citizens’ lives, and when it comes to improving people’s lives, government is not just an essential player but the essential player. If we are to meet that challenge in an era of dwindling outside support and resources, we have to do more than manage. We have to innovate.

With the 2016 presidential election gearing up, we’ll be hearing from some candidates and pundits about how “less government” is the solution. Besides the fact that the term itself is a selective phrase that usually means cutting some areas of government while boosting others, those who make a simplistic argument for “less government” are making a key error. They fail to actually identify the problem. Government is not the problem. It’s status quo bureaucracy. An acceptance of “the way we’ve always done things” is what sets us back.

The naysayers conflate “government” and “status quo bureaucracy” as one and the same. When there’s a problem, they say, “Government can’t fix this. It’s not nimble enough. It can’t think different. It’ll only wrap up the problem in red tape.” It’s more than a negative, sky-is-falling attitude—it’s a way to avoid responsibility by offering up an easy way out of our problems. If only we would cut, we’d solve our problems. But we know they’re wrong—and we’ve proved them wrong in Somerville. We’ve shown that government can innovate and that the answer isn’t more or less government, but efficient, effective government. It can adapt. It can disrupt.

But first we have to break out of hierarchical and rule-driven structures that mire us in an unacceptable status quo. The “way we’ve always done things” often focuses on complying with rigid procedures, instead of outcomes for our citizens. We need to stop and ask ourselves whether our procedures make sense. Then once we’ve freed ourselves from the outdated thinking and policies that held us back, we need to put aside ego and the provincialism that’s particularly evident in Massachusetts. Everyone likes to be right, and we politicians like to say that they were the first to do something. But we can’t hesitate to adopt an idea and adapt it to our specific situations only because it originated elsewhere. T.S. Eliot said, “Mediocre writers borrow. Great writers steal.” Fortunately we don’t have to steal innovative ideas because we’re increasingly sharing best practices through increased regional cooperation and events like last week’s symposium.

Somerville has adopted many ideas that originated elsewhere, and adapted them for our purposes. Our SomerStat Office is based on a city statistical analytics program in Baltimore, which in turn was preceded by a stat program in the New York City Police Department. The United Kingdom’s nationwide well-being survey inspired us to undertake our Happiness Survey. Larger cities with more resources had 311 and Connect-CTY notification systems before Somerville, and we found a way to adopt those ideas. Now, we are working on adapting the Social Progress Index, which began as a way to measure a country’s success, to measure success at the city level.

And government needs to adapt, not only to tackle the problems that our citizens face but out of pure necessity. The 1990s saw the greatest economy in modern history, but that time and those revenues haven’t come back. We live in a new age where government must continue to deliver critical services and solve problems, but do so with more limited resources. The good news is that we can deliver those services and develop new solutions using technology and by making data-driven decisions. Technology that empowers cities and towns to become more efficient is becoming more affordable and accessible, and the data we need to inform our decisions is already out there—we just have to collect it, and then have the right people in place to make sense of it.

Somerville has a tradition of proud, hard-working people who embrace challenges. We embrace our responsibility as City officials by not taking the easy way out, saying that government cannot solve the problems we face. We adapt and seek out innovative ideas, wherever they come from, so that we can improve the lives of each and every resident of our community. And if we can continue to share ideas with other communities through events like last week’s symposium and more regional collaboration—and by continuing to work with our residents—we can build upon our newest tradition of efficient and effective government.