Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) will be celebrated May 4–10, 2014, with the theme of “Honoring Our Public Servants; Connecting Citizens with Their Government.” Celebrated the first week of May since 1985, PSRW is “time set aside to honor the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county, and local government employees and ensure that our government is the best in the world.”

Connecting with residents has always been an important aspect of the professionalization of local government management. In January 1894, as part of an effort to “nationalize” municipal movements, 147 representatives from 27 cities met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the National Conference for Good City Government. This conference led to the creation of the National Municipal League (later to become the National Civic League), which would go on to endorse professional local government management and the council-manager form of government in the second through eighth (and most recent) editions of its Model City Charter.