While the City of Centennial was in its infancy in 2000, the historic city of Baltimore was undergoing a dramatic change in it’s governance.
Based on the heralded public safety model of New York, Baltimore’s Mayor O’Malley initiated a similar program to manage all city services, called CitiStat. CitiStat is a management process, based on the tenets of collecting and analyzing high quality data, closely monitoring results, providing accountability/feedback, and emphasizing transparency in the process.
The results in Baltimore have been astounding. In the following three years, the city saved $42 million. Just as importantly, citizens’ satisfaction levels, regarding city services, increased.
Many cities around the country, and in Colorado, collect data and establish performance indicators for city services. However, in almost every case, the results are collected and reported annually. The opportunity to use the information as a management tool is lost. Baltimore and a handful of cities collect, measure, and report the data on a regular basis, a true management tool.
Centennial has progressed quickly in its short history. Since 2001, the necessary ordinances and services for a city of 100,000 have been enacted and refined.
The cornerstone of a responsible and efficient government has been laid out by Mayor Randy Pye, previous city councils, and a diligent staff, headed by City Manager Jacque Wedding-Scott. A visionary and guiding document, Our Voice Our Vision 2030, was created by a panel of citizens to provide guidance and goals well into the future.
With Our Voice Our Vision 2030 as our goal-defining document, I’ve proposed the Centennial Scorecard system, defining Centennial as the premier results-driven government in our region.
Here’s how the Centennial Scorecard works:
*The Centennial City Council requires performance measurement benchmarks in all departments and all outsourced contracts, designed with the city’s goals in mind.
*Data collection and analysis accelerates from an annual collection to a monthly collection.
*The City Manager, and Mayor, begin monthly meetings with department heads to review the reported results, critique the progress, and reward achievement.
*Individual performance reviews and departmental budget requests are tied to the performance measurement reports.
*An executive summary document, Centennial Scorecard, is created, maintained, and published on a monthly basis for Centennial citizen’s to review, via website or publication.
*A bi-annual survey of Centennial citizens provides a baseline as to the progress towards the city’s stated goals. The survey must be statistically sound.
The Centennial Scorecard will save taxpayer dollars, increase the service level to our citizens, and create a local government that is inherently more responsible to the citizens it serves.
Since its inception, Centennial changed the rules of municipal governance. As the first “contracted services” city in the country, Centennial set the bar that other municipalities have replicated.
With the incorporation of the proposed Centennial Scorecard, Centennial will become the premier model of a “results-driven” government. Data that had previously collected dust on someone’s shelf will be transformed into a management tool.
The Centennial Scorecard provides the management process, transparency, and accountability that other citizens will demand in the future. Centennial citizens deserve nothing less.
“What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well, what gets rewarded gets repeated.”
-John E. Jones
Todd Miller is a twice-elected Council Member for the City of Centennial, former Mayor Pro-Tem and the author of the Centennial Scorecard. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
