NLC 2025 City Summit: Elevating Leadership and Tech
November 25, 2025 by Craig Patton
The 2025 National League of Cities (NLC) City Summit, held Nov. 19-22, 2025, in Salt Lake City, Utah, was a unique opportunity for municipal leaders to connect and engage with more than 3,000 of their peers. Attendees benefited from learning opportunities that ranged from executive education to workshops focused on critical issues for local governments and municipal staff.
Tyler Technologies, a Gold Sponsor of this year’s summit, was on the scene. From the Expo Hall to our presentation on priority-based budgeting to casual conversations, here are the main takeaways we observed.
Summit 2025: Taking Leadership to New Heights
This year’s Summit emphasized effective leadership — helping local leaders build the skills, tools, and partnerships to drive change in an era of complexity. The housing and homelessness crises, innovations in technology, and the importance of ensuring equal access to services for residents were all prominently featured.
Within the technology-specific programming, there were multiple workshops centered on artificial intelligence (AI), data foundations, and modernization. The message was clear. Local governments are rising to the challenge of adapting to rapid technological change — including the responsible and effective use of AI — to better serve their communities.
Using AI to Modernize Budgeting
In his session, “Smarter Budgeting with AI: Unlocking Insights for Public Sector Impact,” Jesse Muniz, head of client success for Priority Based Budgeting at Tyler, revealed the benefits of using AI within a budgeting approach that ranks programs by community priorities.
Muniz shared with the audience, “Developing new data sets and interpreting data is a challenge for any local government. Utilizing AI, we can remove those barriers so local governments can use the data to focus on the real work of making budget decisions that have the most impact to their communities.”
Through real-world examples, Muniz outlined how local leaders can use AI tools to analyze complex datasets, reveal hidden patterns, forecast costs, and score programs with greater accuracy. He also showed how teams can use AI to compare similarly scored programs across jurisdictions, helping identify opportunities for reallocation and revenue-generating strategies tailored to each community’s needs.
In one impactful example, Muniz described how a city uncovered funding for a 25-year-old mayoral initiative that was no longer relevant. The city reallocated the funds to address the current needs of the community.
Trusted Technology Partners Support Government Success
The entire conference program reflected NLC’s mission to influence federal policy, strengthen local leadership, and drive innovative solutions. Tyler is proud to be a Capstone Partner of NLC, participating in tradeshows, hosting system modernization webinars, and highlighting digital government solutions on NLC’s blog.
At the Tyler booth, attendees networked while enjoying “Innovation is Brewing” custom espresso. Tyler team members demonstrated the benefits of cloud-based solutions for payments, resident engagement, and data-driven decision-making. Through these solutions and others, Tyler remains committed to helping NLC members modernize operations and better serve residents.
