What Happened?
The Council on Local Results and Innovation has released a set of ten “performance measures” for cities and counties, which could help demonstrate how effectively services are provided to residents.
Who Cares?
Though the Council was established by the Minnesota Legislature as a local standards program, the ten measures are worthy of review by municipalities across the country. Comprehensive performance measurement systems are widely in use in the private sector, but haven’t been utilized in most municipalities. According to the Council, such systems are critical to a well-functioning public entity as they support “strategic planning, performance budgeting, results‐oriented management, and program evaluation.”
The Background
The work of the Council was based in part on a report by the National Performance Management Advisory Commission, which is a group of state and local public officials. That very detailed 73-page report from 2010 created a performance management framework, and offered several examples of municipalities that focus on grading and tracking performance.
The Measures
It’s worth noting that the Council does not advocate universal deployment of these performance measures; rather, the Council recommends that cities identify and utilize performance measures that are appropriate locally. “Our recommended performance measures should be considered examples to assist counties and cities in developing their own performance measures.”
Okay, here are the performance measures for cities, categorized by function; the Council has another set of measures for counties, if you’re interested. Some “output measures” are noted, where appropriate:
A. General
- Overall—Rating of the overall quality of services provided by your city. This could be a “Citizen Survey,” with options such as: Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor)
- Home Values—Percent change in the taxable property market value
- Citizen Rating—This could be a citizens’ rating of the overall appearance of the city; again, a survey with options such as: Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor
B. Police Services
- Crime Rates, Part I—Murder, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
- Crime Rates, Part II—Other assaults, forgery, counterfeiting, embezzlement, stolen property, vandalism, weapons, prostitution, other sex offenses, narcotics, gambling, family/children crime, D.U.I., liquor laws, disorderly conduct, and other offenses.
- Citizen Rating—This woulc be another survey of safety in their community, with options such as: Very safe, Somewhat safe, Neither safe nor unsafe, Somewhat unsafe, and Very unsafe
A potential “output measure” mentioned by the Council might be police response time, or the “time it takes on top priority calls from dispatch to the first officer on scene.”
Fire Services
- ISO Rating—The Insurance Service Office issues ratings to Fire Departments throughout the country for the effectiveness of their fire protection services and equipment to protect their community. The Council recommended using the ISO data as a benchmark for fire services.
- Citizen Rating—Another citizen survey could rate the quality of fire protection services, with options such as: Excellent, Good, Fair, andPoor
Similar to Police benchmarks, above, a potential “output measure” could be the fire response time, or the emergency medical services response time, if appropriate.
Streets
- Conditions—Average city street pavement condition rating, as already tracked and reported (i.e., the Pavement Condition Index)
- Citizen Rating on Conditions—Another survey that rates the road conditions, with options such as: Good condition, Mostly good condition, Many bad spots, etc.
- Citizen Rating on Services—Such as a survey on the quality of snowplowing on city streets
Water
- Citizen Rating Water Quality—This could be another citizens’ rating of the dependability and quality of city water supply, with options such as: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, etc.
A potential “output measure” could be the operating cost per 1 million gallons of water pumped and produced.
Sanitary Sewer
- Citizen Rating—This could be another survey on the dependability and quality of city sanitary sewer service.
A potential output measure: the number of sewer blockages on city system per 100 connections
Parks and Recreation:
- Citizen Rating—And finally, another survey could be conducted on the quality of city recreational programs and facilities, such as parks, trails, and park buildings. As with other examples above, the criteria could be simple options such as: Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor