How does a municipality truly measure its performance on issues like public safety, health, finance and transportation? San Francisco may have figured it out. The city and county released a new report last month showing how it stacks up against a number of its peers on a range of important issues.
The analysis was made possible by critical data gleaned from a division of the Office of the Controller. Government Technology staff writer Ryan McCauley explains:
In 2003, San Francisco voters opted to allow monitoring of the level and effectiveness of services provided by the city and county. This led to the creation of the Controller's Office City Services Auditor Division (CSA), which would offer objective and independent analysis on municipal services being provided. The CSA is broken into two units: the city’s internal auditor and the City Performance Unit (CPU).
The CPU team provides analysis, problem-solving and practical support to city departments to improve their service delivery. In the team's mission to improve how city services are administered, it prepares annual performance measurement reports to help the public, city officials and department heads understand the real impact of programs.
The goal of the Citywide Performance Measurement and Management Program (Performance Program) is to work with departments to create reliable and easy-to-use performance data — which helps the city and its residents make efficient, effective and thoughtful operational and resource decisions. As the nature of information sharing has changed and people are starting to discover that visual representations of data are much more easily digestible, the CSA has made it a priority to create more graphical representations of report data.
The scorecard program just turned a year old. Through the site, the CPU is trying to move away from PDF reports and into a more interactive space, CPU City Services Auditor Natasha Mihal said.
For its latest report, the city combed through available data on 16 other municipalities and conducted surveys to compare them with San Francisco. The Bay City scored big on revenue and libraries but not so great on transportation and traffic congestion.
The data may not tell us everything, but it is extremely useful when it comes to drawing comparisons with peer cities.
"We are hoping the the decision-makers use these reports as a tool to make better decisions,” Mihal said.
Be sure to check out the latest report here.