Advocating for modernized public services

For the past 40 years, Doug Howard has helped governments transform how they deliver essential services to the public. He started his career as a line worker in child support and later served as a human services agency leader in Iowa and Michigan. Now, in his role at Maximus, he focuses on expanding our state and local presence.

Throughout his career, Doug has remained committed to enhancing the way people interact with government agencies, programs, and services. Today, he frequently engages with state and local government leaders nationwide to exchange ideas and approaches for more adaptable, responsive, and efficient public programs.

For a variety of reasons, many state agencies are facing capacity issues that impact the service delivery of their programs. I encourage agency leaders to re-examine their capacity challenges when I talk to them. Is it a funding issue? Is it a product of new federal requirements that add complexity to your program? Is it a workforce shortage? Or is it a short-term problem caused by spikes in activity, like an enrollment period or a seasonal trend?

The government still has to get the work done, but agencies don't always need long-term solutions for short-term challenges. Public-private partnerships can build up capacity that can be scaled up and down.

I encourage agency leaders to view vendors as more than just service providers. Think of us as your partner, a team working hand-in-hand with your staff to ensure both the short- and long-term success of your programs.

A successful partnership goes beyond just a contract. It’s about aligning visions and being flexible enough to meet changing needs so public services can be more effective and resilient. Adaptability is key.

Technology’s role in public service has evolved in many ways but let me give you an example from the customer service point of view. 

Early in my career, I worked in the child support enforcement arm of a state's department of human services. I started as a line worker, first as an administrative reviewer focusing on paternity establishment processes. Then, I moved into a child support case management position.

The state was implementing technology to centralize payments and records for its child support disbursement unit. Simultaneously, it was rolling out the technology to support the establishment of enforcement work in the field. The dual implementation experienced several challenges, and I shared my concerns. 

The state established a committee to help improve it. The next thing I knew, they wanted me to manage the customer service arm of the state disbursement unit, which was overwhelmed by a call volume it couldn’t handle.

A colleague and I had heard about this audio response technology. We brought it in, took two days for training, and then spent the next three weeks programming the first interactive voice response (IVR) for a child support program. In the first month, close to 80% of callers got their questions answered through the IVR, which allowed us to increase the number of calls we could handle from 10,000 to 90,000.

That IVR was a lightbulb moment for me: What can technology do to support the government and the people who need government services?

I can’t think of many recent industry meetings, conversations, or conferences where AI hasn’t been mentioned. While some people still think AI is most relevant in high-tech fields like science or engineering, others are seeing how the practical integration of AI into public programs is changing how state programs operate and interact with the public. On the operations side, AI tools have effectively streamlined the back-office processes of state government programs for some time and continue to automate routine and repetitive tasks. These productivity gains frequently redefine resource allocation, as people can focus on more complex cases augmented by continuous technology advancements.

On the interactions side, let’s go back to my IVR lightbulb moment that technology should support the people engaging with the government. We’re seeing how AI can improve customer service, which has now evolved into customer experience  (thanks mainly to technology). Think better trained human agents, supported by virtual agent assistance, producing more personalized agent-customer interactions.

Like the government agency leaders I talk to, my Maximus colleagues are mindful, thoughtful, and responsible about using AI to improve service delivery and overall customer experience. We don’t view AI as the solution to every challenge, but we see the potential to augment what humans do best.

Throughout my career, I’ve always focused on making public services more responsive to the changing needs of the people receiving them. In some ways, it’s very simple: improving government services comes down to combining thoughtful policy design, strong partnerships, and smart technology — and always remembering that people remain our priority. 

I’m also mindful that government defines public policy. As a partner, our role is to help them efficiently implement it. One of my philosophies, which I’ve maintained over my years of service, is that governments and their partners need to focus on getting the right benefits and services to the right people at the right time. To me, that speaks to efficient service delivery that puts program participants and taxpayers at the center of government programs.