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The Novo Solutions Blog is a place to share our thoughts on best practices and industry news.

Public Works Climate Resilience: Asset & Maintenance Planning

Extreme weather events are no longer rare exceptions—they are the new normal. From record flooding and intense heat waves to powerful storms and wildfires, public works departments are on the front lines of protecting communities and critical infrastructure. If you manage roads, stormwater systems, water and wastewater assets, fleet, signs, or facilities, preparing asset and maintenance plans for extreme weather and climate resilience is essential to minimize service disruptions, control [...]

AI Agentic Workflows for Public Works

Public works departments across the United States face mounting pressure: aging infrastructure, shrinking budgets, rising citizen expectations, and chronic staffing shortages. What if your teams could wake up each morning to work orders that have already been intelligently triaged, prioritized, and routed—while predictive maintenance agents have already flagged assets at risk of failure? AI agentic workflows for public works deliver exactly that capability. Unlike traditional automation or simple generative AI [...]

AI Skills for Public Works: 7 Essential Competencies for 2026

Public works departments face relentless pressure: aging roads and utilities, severe staffing shortages, rising service requests, and tighter budgets. At the same time, artificial intelligence is moving from concept to daily operational reality. Leading municipalities are already using AI for predictive maintenance, smarter work order prioritization, automated reporting, and optimized resource allocation. AI skills for public works professionals are no longer optional. Directors, supervisors, GIS specialists, and field crews who develop targeted [...]

Cyber Threats in Public Works: Protect Digital Infrastructure 2026

Public works departments form the backbone of every community—delivering clean water, maintaining roads, managing fleets, and responding to emergencies. Yet these essential operations face an intensifying wave of cyber threats in public works. From ransomware that halts work order systems to state-sponsored actors pre-positioning in water treatment plants, municipalities are high-value targets with limited resources and aging infrastructure. In 2025–2026, attacks on public sector entities surged, with ransomware incidents against government bodies [...]

Reduce Missed Maintenance Tasks in Public Works

Public works departments keep our communities running—maintaining roads, water systems, fleets, parks, and critical infrastructure that millions rely on every day. Yet too many municipalities struggle with missed maintenance tasks, leading to emergency repairs, budget overruns, safety risks, and frustrated residents. If you’re a public works administrator, municipal manager, or IT leader searching for practical ways to reduce missed maintenance tasks, this guide delivers actionable strategies backed by real-world results. [...]

Public Works Software: Manage Limited Staff & Service Requests

Public works departments are the backbone of every community—keeping roads safe, water flowing, fleets running, and parks inviting. Yet across cities, counties, and towns in 2026, administrators face a persistent pressure: limited staff stretched thin while service requests continue to climb due to aging infrastructure, population growth, extreme weather, and heightened citizen expectations for fast, transparent service. Many teams report that emergency repairs alone consume 50-70% of maintenance budgets, [...]

How to Track Road Maintenance Costs by Road Segment

Public works departments across municipalities face constant pressure to stretch limited budgets while maintaining safe, reliable roads. When costs are tracked only at the department or project level, it becomes nearly impossible to identify which road segments are draining resources or which preventive strategies actually deliver ROI. Learning how to track road maintenance costs by road segment changes everything. It gives administrators precise visibility into labor, materials, equipment, and contractor [...]

Public Works Work Order Prioritization Best Practices

In an era of tightening budgets, aging infrastructure, and rising citizen expectations, mastering public works work order prioritization best practices has become a non-negotiable skill for every municipal public works director, county administrator, and IT manager overseeing government operations. Whether your team handles street repairs, fleet maintenance, stormwater management, park facilities, or emergency utility responses, the way you rank and sequence work orders directly impacts safety, costs, compliance, and public [...]

2026 Guide: Evaluating Municipal Software Vendor Cybersecurity Posture

In an era of escalating cyber threats against local governments, learning how to evaluate the cybersecurity posture of municipal software vendors is essential for protecting citizen data, critical infrastructure, and public trust. Municipalities increasingly depend on specialized SaaS platforms for asset management, work orders, GIS integration, and citizen portals—systems that, if compromised, can disrupt essential services like road maintenance, water utilities, and emergency response for days or weeks. Recent trends [...]

Risk Management Strategies for Public Works in 2026

As public works departments nationwide grapple with aging infrastructure, intensifying climate events, and sophisticated cyber threats, risk management strategies for public works in 2026 have become essential for municipal survival and service excellence. Public works administrators, IT managers, and municipal leaders face a perfect storm: the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2025 Report Card gave U.S. infrastructure an overall “C” — the highest ever — yet stormwater, transit, and [...]

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