Measuring Government
Performance: Ankeny Officials Continue to Refine the Process
When it comes
to producing an outstanding performance report, it’s hard to get it
right the first time.
Performance
reports are designed to tell the real story behind the dollars and
cents. Sometimes, though, governments aren’t tracking the right
things, or the information isn’t exactly what is needed to get a
handle on how well government is serving its citizens.
And even
though the City of Ankeny, Iowa, has earned national recognition
from AGA for its performance reports three years in a row, Matt
McQuillen, the Assistant to the City Manager who has put the last
two reports together, is the first to say that performance reporting
is an evolving field.
The city’s
report, called a Service Efforts and Accomplishments (SEA) Report,
outlines the city’s progress in public safety, transportation,
utilities, parks and economic development. A consultant wrote the
report the first two years, in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, with
performance measures developed in part by a citizens’ committee that
discussed what city services were most important to them. In 2006,
the process became more integrated into the city organization, and
department directors took a hard look at the data they were
tracking. What they found was that in some cases, the outcomes were
hard to quantify and didn’t really do justice to what the department
was doing, McQuillen said.
For example,
the Planning and Building Department was tracking the number of
building permits it approved—an important number in a city that saw
a 33 percent population increase between 2000 and 2005. But
officials determined that it would be more useful to determine not
only the sheer number of permits, which the department had no
control over, but how quickly they were approved.
City officials
use the performance measures during the budget request process.
Directors can use the data to determine trends and see how their
departments’ performance compares with previous years. But McQuillen
hopes that in the future, the public will become more involved in
the process. A
summary of the SEA report was mailed to all residents and
businesses in the city’s quarterly newsletter, with directions to
find more information on the city’s website. Eventually, McQuillen
would like to see the entire report mailed to all households.
“That’s a personal goal of mine.”
McQuillen said
figuring out how to get citizens involved is tricky. Ankeny brought
in citizens at the early stages of the process, but other
governments do it later. Ankeny also contracts with the National
Research Center to conduct biannual citizen satisfaction surveys.
Every city service is covered and relates back to the performance
measures.
The city used
citizen feedback and the SEA information to change how it clears the
streets in the winter. Salt is tough on roads, creating more
potholes in the spring, but it melts ice efficiently. If more sand
is used in the mixture, the snow removal costs go down because sand
is cheaper; but in the spring, the street cleaning costs go up
because sand makes a mess. After experimenting with using more sand,
the city went back to using more salt in the mix. It turned out
citizens cared more about clear streets in the winter and clean
streets in the summer than hitting potholes in the spring.
McQuillen says
the next SEA Report will evolve even further, by tying the
performance measures more directly to the long-range goals set by
the City Council—managing growth and infrastructure is one, for
example. “It’s good to show the citizens what the vision is, and it
also shows the governing body some tangible value.”
The ultimate
goal of performance reporting is for governments to use the data
analysis as a tool to make better decisions for citizens. Reports
should show not only what services government performed, but what
government is doing to make improvements. Here’s an example: Ankeny
set a goal that Fire Department personnel will arrive on the scene
within eight minutes, 80 percent of the time. That response time has
been met more often (53 percent versus 25 percent the year before)
now that the city has increased staffing from seven to 12.
“If you don’t
have that second piece to it, if you’re not evaluating it, what’s
the value of the information?” McQuillen said. “It’s just numbers on
paper.”
For
governments that are new to performance reporting, McQuillen said a
strong commitment from elected officials is important, as well as
getting buy-in from department directors. “They’re the ones who have
to track it and bring the data in. You really need their involvement
early on for it to work long term. The top-down approach only goes
so far.”