GFOA president: Local government is where ‘rubber hits the road’

Incoming Government Finance Officers Association president Lunda Asmani, the son of a retired diplomat, followed in the path to public service but early on opted for career dedicated to local government.

“Public service was always a part of life growing up,” said Asmani, the chief financial officer of Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut. “Having lived in a house that was more focused on national government, I wanted a level that had more impact. It felt like local government is where the rubber hits the road.”

As the incoming president of the nation’s largest local and state finance officers’ association, Asmani, 52, will head up an organization that he’s been involved with since the beginning of his 20-year career. One of his goals is to bring in more entry-level employees to benefit from the public finance training and networking that helped shape his career.

Asmani takes the GFOA helm at a time when he sees challenges from an ill-mannered national political mood filtering into local politics — at rowdy school board and town hall meetings across the country — and as local funds face the threat of federal freezes and cuts. Asmani, who’s married to a school principal, said schools represent “the new battle front” on ideological issues, making public engagement more important than ever for all local finance officers.

Born in Tanzania, Asmani began first grade in New York where his father was serving the Tanzanian mission in the United Nations. The family then moved to Europe, where he studied further in Brussels and Italy before eventually moving back to Tanzania. There, he earned his first degree, a B.A. in urban planning and economics from the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

“At that point I did want to work in government, but I was particularly interested in local government,” he said. With national politics, “there are so many other influencers and factors and for one person it takes so many more levers to get things to move,” he said. “At the local level, you still have the levers but you have fewer of them and are able to effect change at a different pace.”

At Wichita State University, where he earned a master’s degree in public administration, Asmani was immediately immersed in the actual practice of running local government.

“The program at WSU had great connections with local governments in the area, and there was a lot of collaboration with cities and counties,” Asmani said. The students would attend county meetings and brown bag lunches with city and county managers, he said.

After graduation he began a 12-month management internship in the county manager’s office in 2001, but was soon recruited to join the finance office as a budget analyst for Sedgwick County, Kansas.

Over the last two decades, he has served in several senior finance management positions: CFO for the town of New Canaan Connecticut, director of management and budgets for the City of Norwalk, Connecticut and assistant city manager for budget and finance for the City of Newton, Kansas. He began his current position as CFO for the Norwalk district five years ago.

It was during his first job as budget analyst in Sedgewick County that Asmani got involved with the GFOA.

The county “valued GFOA so much, it was almost like an expectation that everyone in the finance department would be a member,” he said. “So I started going to GFOA training from my first role in local government, accounting for beginners.”

Asmani is past President of the Kansas Government Finance Officers Association and currently sits on the board of the Connecticut Government Finance Officers Association. He served two terms on the Treasury and Investment Management Standing Committee and a term on the Debt Standing Committee. He is currently Ex-Officio on the Budget Standing Committee, and is a member and Past President of the GFOA Black Caucus.

When he joined Norwalk schools, where he oversees a $400 million operating, grant and capital budget, Asmani found out fast public engagement is key to running a successful school system.

“I started at public schools right after COVID and the very first meeting was a town hall about mask wearing,” he recalled. “I was amazed at how passionate the parents were. That was really eye-opening for me at the first budget meeting.”

A decade ago, a proposed bond financing would spark the most concern, he said. “Now it’s what we are teaching our kids, the restrooms — all these social value type of issues that are really clashing at the school level. Public education has just taken a whole different turn now than it was ten years ago,” he said. “I feel like this is the battle front for ideas at the local level.”

Effectively engaging the public is an area where the GFOA can help finance officers and elected officials, even as divisions at the national level increasingly impact local politics, he said.

“The civility in the discourse is becoming more and more of a challenge as the national politics are becoming more localized,” he said. “It’s a challenge for CFOs just to manage that. There isn’t a Republican or a Democratic way to fix the pothole, so when you inject politics into local government decision-making it does create additional challenges.”

The potential for federal funding cuts and freezes under the current administration represents another challenge for cities and states, Asmani said. His district lost roughly 30% of its budget when federal pandemic funds ran out. Educating parents about the shifting priorities and new needs is critical to managing with fewer resources, he said.

One of his goals for his term is to provide education to not only senior officials but to younger professionals like budget analysts and entry- and mid-level employees, he said.

His focus comes as the GFOA is redefining its membership structure by allowing more people within a government entity to have access to membership.

“The GFOA really supported me and my growth and we as GFOA can really do better,” he said. “I’d like to see more Lundas.”

Asmani has passed down his love of public service to his 22-year-old son, who recently graduated with an MBA and now works in local government in New Jersey. His 18-year-old daughter just graduated high school and plans to go to college for nursing in the fall.