This episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast features Chris Hall, commissioner of Collier County, Florida. He shares how the county adopted priority based budgeting to move away from subjective, manual methods and toward a data driven, goal oriented framework. The conversation highlights how Collier County identified redundancies, uncovered millions in savings, and empowered staff to make more strategic decisions. Tune in to hear how a smarter budgeting process is helping the county strengthen fiscal responsibility and deliver better services to residents.
In this episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast, Chris Hall, commissioner of Collier County, Florida, joins the show to discuss how his community has transformed its approach to budgeting through priority-based budgeting.
Commissioner Hall shares how Collier County shifted away from manual, subjective methods to a data-driven, goal-oriented framework that better aligns resources with resident needs. He explains how evaluating more than 600 programs revealed redundancies, created new opportunities for savings and revenue, and strengthened fiscal responsibility without raising taxes.
The conversation also highlights the importance of staff buy-in, transparency, and empowering employees to rethink long standing practices. With $150 million in potential savings already identified and $40 million implemented, Collier County is setting a new standard for sustainable budgeting and service delivery.
Tune in to hear how one county is redefining its budgeting process and building a smarter, more strategic path forward.
This episode also highlights the advantages of cloud infrastructure and how it is transforming the public sector. From reducing technical debt and streamlining operations to creating the flexibility to adopt AI and other emerging tools, the cloud provides a smarter, more resilient foundation for modernization, security, and innovation. Explore our resources in the show notes to learn how governments can maximize long-term value and take the next step toward a future built to adapt.
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Chris Hall: The three main rules of budgeting is identify, identify, identify.
And with the processes and the guidelines set forth from Tyler in the priority-based budgeting process, we set all of our processes, all of our service – we put them in four different categories.
Josh Henderson: From Tyler Technologies, this is the Tyler Tech Podcast where we explore the trends, technologies, and people shaping the public sector. I’m your host, Josh Henderson. Thanks for listening.
On this episode, I’m thrilled to be joined by Chris Hall, commissioner of Collier County, Florida, who sat down with me at Tyler Connect 2025 in San Antonio.
Collier County is a community of more than 4000 residents spread across nearly 2000 square miles and earlier this year they were recognized with the Tyler Excellence Award (TEA) for their innovative approach to budgeting.
In this conversation, we talk about how the county has reimagined its process through priority-based budgeting, and Commissioner Hall shares how Collier County shifted from manual, subjective methods to a data-driven goal-oriented framework, what it’s meant for fiscal responsibility and service delivery, and how the approach is helping identify real savings for the county. There’s so much to get into, so let’s jump right in. We hope you enjoy.
Welcome to the Tyler Tech Podcast. Joining us today is Collier County Florida commissioner, Chris Hall. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
To start, can you talk about what prompted Collier County to rethink its budgeting approach and why a more strategic and data-driven model was needed?
Chris Hall: Yes, Josh. I can’t you know, to begin with, I ran for office during right after COVID, and government was out of control, big government, telling us what to do, how to act.
And, so when I ran, I ran on smaller government and less taxes.
So, I was elected overwhelmingly.
So, to keep a campaign promise, that was on the forefront of my brain coming into office.
Well, for 13 years in a row prior to me getting there, Collier County raised taxes on the people.
And, you know, you asked me about why we needed a more strategic and data driven approach, and that’s because if we kept doing things the same way that we’ve always been doing, and we’re going to get the same results we’ve always been getting, which was not good. So, we got, you know, got together. I thought till 1:30 in the morning. There are five commissioners.
And finally, they agreed with me that we would not raise taxes for this current year coming, that we would kind of get the cart before the horse.
We would set our budget and limit the revenue and then force us to do something on the expenditure side.
So thus, enters Priority Based Budgeting.
Josh Henderson: Sure. That’s great.
And now you evaluated and scored more than 600 programs and services as part of the process. That seems to me to be a massive undertaking. So how did you approach this effort, and what did it take to build that inventory and score programs in a in a meaningful way to you?
Chris Hall: So, as I mentioned, we had to get away from the status quo, and I knew that priority-based budgeting existed.
It used to be a big buzzword back in the day, and you didn’t hear much about it anymore. But it just made sense to me. You spend your money based on what your priorities are.
So, we got we opened up a dialogue with, actually, artificial intelligence.
Start asking it questions about, you know, which companies had government experience, same similar size budget.
And through that, we identified 12 different companies, interviewed every one of them, narrowed that down to three, and Tyler was clear and above the best bang for our buck. So, we’re two years into this process, and it was a good choice.
Josh Henderson: It’s good to know. You’re two years in. You’re very familiar with it now. It’s part of the infrastructure there in Collier County.
So once that framework was in place, how did Priority Based Budgeting help the county make more strategic and objective decisions about where to allocate those resources?
Chris Hall: You know, the three main rules of real estate is location, location, location. The three main rules of budgeting is identify, identify, identify.
And with the processes and the guidelines set forth from Tyler in the priority-based budget process, we set all of our processes, all of our services.
We put them in four different categories. We had high cost, high impact. We had high impact, low cost.
We had low impact, high cost, and then we had low impact, low cost. And within those four quadrants, we also took a look at what of the services that we provide that are in each one of these, which one’s mandated by law, which ones do we cannot get rid of. We have to do that by state statute. And then the other ones we have, you know, leeway on whether we want to do them or whether we don’t. We also took into account public services.
Southwest Florida is an affluent area.
It’s very safe, and people come there, and they expect a lot. And, you know, 600 services in a county is extreme.
Most of them have 350 to 400. So that’s how we identified these things.
And then in the identification process, we saw where we had redundancies.
We saw her where we had duplications.
We saw that we were doing things just because we’ve always done them, and we saw in areas that, hey. We need to step up here, and we can implement this and that to get you know, to increase our service here and not doing it at an additional cost to the taxpayer.
Josh Henderson: Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with more of the Tyler Tech Podcast.
Every day, public sector leaders are rethinking how technology supports their communities.
Jade Champion: And more than ever, they’re finding the answer in the cloud.
Josh Henderson: From streamlining operations and reducing technical debt to creating the flexibility to adopt AI and other emerging tools, cloud infrastructure is transforming how governments deliver services.
Jade Champion: It’s not just about migrating systems. It’s about building a smarter, more resilient foundation for modernization, security, and innovation.
Josh Henderson: At Tyler, we understand how governments are making that shift, the trends driving adoption, ways to maximize long term value, and the steps to make your journey a success.
Jade Champion: Check out the resources in our show notes to learn more about the cloud advantage and how you can take the next step towards a government that’s built to adapt.
Josh Henderson: The future of government is in the cloud. Now let’s get back to the Tyler Tech Podcast.
You’ve already identified $150,000,000 in potential savings and new revenue opportunities and actively implemented $40,000,000 of those. Can you share what this has meant in terms of real world impact such as service delivery and fiscal responsibility and, of course, sort of something that you ran on to become commissioner, the ability to lower the tax rate?
Chris Hall: And that it it’s the same vein. We had to identify what was important, identify what was mandated versus what was costly and just, you know, nice to have.
And with the duplication and the redundancies that we eliminated, coming in with that grid, with those identified, you know, within those guidelines, just, you know, sitting down and doing the commonsense things. Hey. Where can we charge fees to the public to offset the expense?
What grants are available? You know? How can we sharpen our skills there?
What kind of areas and what kind of services do we provide, especially in parks and rec, that we can, create private public partnerships?
And we’ve had a lot of success doing that in just the first year. And, you know, I was under the impression that we were going to do the hard work, you know, because in that meeting at 1:30 in the morning, we all agreed that we would dive in and do and make the hard decisions.
So, I’m thinking in my mind, this is going to take a year. Well, that’s been the most maddening thing for me is because, you know, here we are two years in the process, and we are just now getting to the real meat of this issue.
Josh Henderson: It takes time. It takes time. Like you said, it’s not an overnight process, and that patience and trust in the methodology is quite critical in all of it. How did you approach leading through that process and keeping stakeholders engaged, you know, while that foundation was being built over the last couple of years?
Chris Hall: That’s really a good question because it’s a huge undertaking, and we’ve had staff leadership that were have been there 25, 30, some of them 35 years, and they’d always done things the way that they did things.
So, the first thing we had to do was we had to establish cost centers.
And it’s a generic term, but, basically, it’s let’s just say, we spend $100 dollars for postage.
What does the $100 consist of? Is $25 of it stamps? Is, you know, is $25 of it, you know, for marketing? You know, we identified every single cost center. And to do that, we had to get buy in from the staff.
We had to first of all, we had to empower the employees. We empowered them. You have the leeway. We’re going to widen the rails of government and let you operate a lot wider.
And after we empowered the employees, we had the guidelines that were given to us by Tyler.
These are the guidelines. These are the rails that you can run on. And then we took a programmatic approach instead of just a, you know, you’re the head of this department, and you got to cut your budget 10%, and, you know, let’s see what you come up with. No. We took a programmatic approach. And with that, we implemented the program’s approach with our strategic plan from the leadership of the county and the direction that we wanted to get to meet our mission statement and our plans.
And in doing that, we also in included what the public wants.
So, we took what the public wants, put it to our strategic plan, scored each one based on priority.
What’s really important? What’s nice to have? What we have to have, but we can kind of play with a little bit? We took those scores, and then from that, we really, came up with a data driven approach that, empowered us to like you said, we’ve identified $150,000,000 of savings and have implemented $40,000,000 of that so far.
Josh Henderson: And so, as this becomes part of Collier County standard approach, how do you see priority based budgeting continuing to shape Collier County, really, from a budgeting standpoint into the future?
Chris Hall: Oh, easy.
This is not an event.
This is the new standard. It is the new way of life.
And every one of our department heads and directors, they all understand that. So, once we get the heavy lifting done, which we’re right in the process, once we get that done, then this should flow year after year after year with just tweaks.
And what it does, it gives us a continued focus versus an initiated focus.
Josh Henderson: And now kind of to wrap things up here. For other public sector leaders listening who are looking to modernize their budgeting approach, what would be that advice you give them to kind of get that started?
Chris Hall: Oh, that’s a good question.
Advice to the others who are thinking about this or considering it. It’s a loaded question. No. It’s really a good one. The first thing that I would recommend is have a serious discussion with your leadership, and you have to have buy in from them. You have to communicate the vision, communicate the passion, communicate the need to your staff and to your leadership so that they join you in this.
You know? It’s kind of like one put 1000 to flight, but two puts, you know, 10,000 to flight. And so, when you can get the staff buy in, I’m going to say that that’s 80% of the battle. And then lastly, it’s the old Nike commercial.
Just do it. You know, you’re going to make mistakes as you go. You’re going to learn some things. You’re going to see things that you didn’t consider and just be flexible and adjust from it. And in the end, you’ll have a prod you know, it’s not hard. This is not rocket science stuff.
It’s not a secret.
It’s pretty common sense. And the process that Tyler brings to the table is so well thought out and so thoughtful that it’s just this step leads to this step, and everything is done for you. It just takes rolling up your sleeves and getting it done.
Josh Henderson: Well, that’s great, and I think leaders will take a lot away from this conversation. Really appreciate you taking the time, commissioner Hall, to chat with me today and, sharing the story.
Chris Hall: I enjoyed it.
Josh Henderson: As we heard today, budgeting is about much more than numbers. It’s about aligning limited resources with what matters most to residents.
Commissioner Chris Hall shared how Collier County has transformed its approach through priority-based budgeting, creating a framework that identifies redundancies, improves transparency, and helps the county deliver services more strategically, all while keeping fiscal responsibility front and center. If you’d like to learn more about priority based budgeting, if you’d like to learn more about Priority Based Budgeting or explore additional resources on today’s topic, check out the show notes.
And we’d love to hear your feedback. Fill out the listener survey linked in the notes or reach out anytime at podcast@tylertech.com. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the show so you never miss an episode. For Tyler Technologies, I’m Josh Henderson. Thanks for listening to the Tyler Tech Podcast.