Title
Recommendation to Approve City-wide Bench Marks and Performance Measures. (City Manager 2110)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: John A. Russo, City Manager
Re: Approve City-wide Bench Marks and Performance Measures
BACKGROUND
During the Fiscal Year's 2013-14 budget process, the City Manager suggested and the City Council agreed to institute a process to evaluate the delivery of city-services through the use of Performance Measures. Performance Measures are objective tools, specific to departments, which are used to evaluate the quality and efficiency of the work those departments perform. Often Performance Measures are compared or "benchmarked," against the efficiency of surrounding cities.
An example of a typical Performance Measure is how quickly the Police Department responds to a call for service. Performance Measures not only gauge how well the Department/City is providing a service, but can help evaluate the consequences of how resources are allocated. Additionally, once measures and/or benchmarks are in place, the individual performance of city executives can be judged, in part, using these publicly set standards. Performance Measures are a transparent means to institutionalize the concept of public accountability.
DISCUSSION
In July 2013, the City retained the firm, Management Partners, to help develop Performance Measures (Measures) appropriate for the City of Alameda. Management Partners met periodically with each city department to develop Measures which were both internally and externally meaningful. In early December 2013, a set of draft Measures were presented to Council for review and input. Council comments were incorporated into the draft Measures and subsequently presented to the public in a series of workshops. Though public attendance was low, those who did attend the workshops provided valuable feedback. Comments from those discussions are outlined in Exhibit 1. ...
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