Report Cards for City Government

Many city governments are beginning to use something called "Performance Measurement".  

This is a way to measure the "bottom line".  The city is not focused on making a profit, so the task of measuring success is more difficult, but not impossible.

What performance measurement asks the city is to describe the signs of success and then measure their own performance against those measures.

Examples of performance measures include:

•    Target response times to emergency aid calls

•    The same as above, but were they able to resolve the issue with the resources they had

•    Lastly, did it help with the recovery of the patient

•    Conditions of the roadways

•    The time it takes to respond to reported roadway problems and resolve them

•    The efficiency of the traffic to move through intersections (point to point commutes)

Performance Measurement provides an opportunity for the citizens of a city to participate in the discussion about what is important.  The description of the signs of success in a city is the first significant step.  Many do this through goal setting, strategic plans, vision statements, etc.  These should be specific about your community and be clear signs of progress.

The next step is to develop ways to measure progress.  Cities need to do this themselves, but you can ask how they are doing this.

Lastly, they need to report the results.  The report should be in plain English and available to the public.  Cities are usually proud of these reports (as most do excellent jobs) and are very willing to share them.

If your city is smaller, it may combine this report with the budget or some other forum.

Not all cities have these systems yet, but they are coming!

There are many resources to help understand this issue.  Here are a few:

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