5 in 5: James Wagner, Tulsa’s Director of Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Results for America Fellowship Alumni give five answers in five minutes. This month, we caught up with James Wagner, Director of Finance and Chief Financial Officer for the City of Tulsa, OK.

1. Summarize what you do and how you do it.
   I connect civic investments to community results by creating systems designed to plan, execute, and measure strategic goals.
2. Share something exciting that you’re working on.
   Tulsa has one of the highest eviction rates in the country. We are working on a project to use our utility billing data to identify payment patterns that correlate with evictions. This will allow us to provide proactive communication to connect families that are at risk of eviction with services that could keep them in their home.
3. Tell us one thing you learned from someone else during your RFA Fellowship.
   Matt Klein shared New York City’s approach to Civic Service Design. I’ve taken that model and deployed it to rethink how we design and deliver procurement services within the City. This model helps to think about who you’re designing for and create an approach that starts with empathy.
4. If you could wave a magic wand and have any data or evidence, what would it be?
   There’s still a lot to be learned about what works in community policing. While there is some evidence on community policing approaches, I would like to have a better understanding of the most effective approaches to reducing crime through collaborative problem-solving.
5. What’s the [pick-your-adjective] job you’ve ever had?
   The nerdiest job I ever had was when I was in graduate school studying city planning and I was hired to conduct a parking study for a retail shopping center. It involved designing a data collection method and walking a large parking lot counting the occupied spaces every 15 minutes in three-hour blocks. Each night, I entered the data into a spreadsheet and made some really cool graphics to present to the client. I loved every minute!

Interested in learning more about Tulsa, OK’s work? Read the December 6, 2018 case study on Tulsa’s sending of text message reminders to reduce court-issued warrants.

James Wagner participated in Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship.