{"id":146808,"date":"2026-03-24T09:54:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/146808\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T09:54:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:54:06","slug":"local-government-academy-teaches-new-officials-the-job-in-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/146808\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Government Academy teaches new officials the job in Pa."},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was made to be heard! Click \u201clisten\u201d above to hear an audio dispatch from Local Government Academy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a recent Saturday afternoon, consultant Jason Dailey was asking a room full of dozens of newly-elected municipal officials about their public works department\u2019s recruiting plans: How old are your workers? When will they retire? Do you have a plan to recruit more?<\/p>\n

It might seem like a boring topic for a sunny weekend afternoon, but Dailey and his enthusiasm had the local officials in the room spellbound. They had spent the day \u2014 informally dubbed \u201cInfrastructure Day\u201d \u2014 mainly hearing about sewers and roads.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the Newly Elected Officials Course<\/a>, a local program that teaches officials the basics of municipal government through more than 40 hours of classes covering everything from the state\u2019s ethics rules to budgeting and finance, to land use and development, to public safety and infrastructure. Students hear from more than 50 subject-matter experts throughout the classes.<\/p>\n

Most of the students here were elected to very local offices such as \u200atownship commissioners or borough council members in November; they took office a few months ago, in January.<\/p>\n

The majority of students are from one of Allegheny County\u2019s 130 municipalities. A handful are from other nearby counties.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Local Government Academy<\/a> has run the classes since 1984.<\/p>\n

Shenay Jeffrey, a new council person from Swissvale, called the classes \u201cphenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of this information is new to me,\u201d Jeffrey said.<\/p>\n

Laureen Alt, a new official who serves on McCandless council, said she was there to learn as much as she could.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a responsibility to the people in my community to be as well educated as quickly as possible,\u201d Alt said.<\/p>\n

Officials who participate in this course, learn \u201cthe key tenet is establishing trust and transparency in all that they do,\u201d said Joy Ruff, executive director of Local Government Academy. The material is strictly government-focused and non-partisan, Ruff said; no material is permitted around campaigns or elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the core things that we try to repeatedly emphasize is the aspect of: There is a Right to Know Law. There’s a Sunshine Act law. There are things that you have to do as a municipal official to be public facing and to have transparency in government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the funding from the class comes from Allegheny County and the state Department of Community and Economic Development. Officials pay fees on a sliding scale based on community size to attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t speak enough about this course. I think it should be mandatory for newly-electeds,\u201d said Patti McCaffrey, a student in the class who serves on Aspinwall Borough Council. \u201cI think some people who have been long-serving that maybe never attended should attend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the new officials in the room have other day jobs, and they don\u2019t necessarily come into office with a lot of municipal government knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this course helps to round us out for the municipal side of things where often we were only spectators, as residents and taxpayers before,\u201d McCaffrey said. \u201cNow, we get to get into the meat of it and really get to understand how it works and hopefully, potentially make it even better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning the nuts and bolts of how local government works has been eye-opening for Alexandria Johnson, a new Wilkinsburg Borough Council member.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou come in [to office] having these grandiose ideas like, I’m ready to make some change, ready to disrupt and, put something new out there in the community,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAnd what this course has shown [me] is that there are so many moving parts in local government that it’s not as simple as, I’m gonna draft a policy or an ordinance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making lasting change requires more understanding, she said. The classes have shown her areas where she needs more information about her own borough, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to make something that is sustainable \u2026 you have to understand all of these moving parts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was made to be heard! Click \u201clisten\u201d above to hear an audio dispatch from Local Government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-146808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}