THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT

Introduction:
Managing for Results

40-County Average Grade: C+

 
 
hen senior staff in one Western county developed a managing-for-results report, the board of supervisors immediately rejected it. There were no problems with the content or the conclusions. What the board objected to was the fact that the report had been printed on glossy paper — and this might send the impression to citizens that the county was spending too much money on its managing-for-results effort. So the board came up with a novel solution: Destroy the glossy copies, and reprint the report on cheaper paper.

Managing for Results Grades County   Alameda, Calif. C Allegheny, Pa. D Anne Arundel, Md. D+ Baltimore, Md. B Broward, Fla. B Clark, Nev. B Contra Costa, Calif. C- Cook, Ill. B- Cuyahoga, Ohio B- Dallas, Texas B Erie, N.Y. C Fairfax, Va. A- Franklin, Ohio B Fulton, Ga. C Hamilton, Ohio B+ Harris, Texas C+ Hennepin, Minn. B Hillsborough, Fla. C+ King, Wash. C Los Angeles, Calif. C+ Maricopa, Ariz. A- Mecklenburg, N.C. B+ Miami-Dade, Fla. B- Milwaukee, Wis. B Monroe, N.Y. C Montgomery, Md. B+ Nassau, N.Y. F Oakland, Mich. C Orange, Calif. C+ Palm Beach, Fla. B- Prince George's, Md. C+ Riverside, Calif. C Sacramento, Calif. B- San Bernardino, Calif. D San Diego, Calif. A- Santa Clara, Calif. C- Shelby, Tenn. B- Suffolk, N.Y. F Wayne, Mich. C+ Westchester, N.Y. D+

Advocates of good management can be grateful that this is an extreme case of a government putting form over substance. But the story points up one of the biggest struggles facing MFR efforts in counties across the country: It’s hard to get many elected leaders to make use of the data — or even, sometimes, to take it seriously. The vast majority of the counties covered in the Government Performance Project say they collect performance information of some type. But only about half of those say the information is well used by stakeholders.

Here, too, decentralization is a large part of the problem. It’s just difficult for balkanized counties to utilize even the most cleverly designed statistical measures in a countywide way. “What you’ll find,” says one official in Ohio’s Franklin County, “is that a lot of people are doing performance measures, but they are operating in silos.”

The same issue of decentralization has made it difficult for most counties to put into place any kind of broad-based strategic plan. While most have strategic-planning efforts in place at the departmental level, only about a quarter of the 40 counties studied had an entity-wide plan in effect — and many of those plans are new and have yet to “become part of our corporate skin,” as one San Diego official puts it.

In the absence of countywide plans, the budget process tends to be the forum for most strategic-planning and measurement debates. Budget documents are used to communicate strategic goals to managers, employees, the media and citizens, and often contain a variety of performance information, including baseline data, implementation strategies, and performance measures and targets.

Even though budget documents, by their nature, tend not to look as far ahead as formal strategic plans, they can be powerful instruments. Fairfax County, Virginia, has no strategic plan, but it has a budget that accurately reflects the goals of the elected leadership and citizens. The priorities are set following an extended process that involves significant input from agency staff, the county supervisors, and stakeholders in the community.

Increasingly, performance information plays into budgeting decisions, although it doesn’t dictate them. Baltimore County budgeters, for instance, request numerous outcome measures from the county’s agencies and departments. But when the outcomes fail to meet expectations, the agencies don’t lose funds as a result. “We don’t threaten budgetary action,” says the county budget director. “We say, ’Here’s what you need to improve, and here’s the money to help.’ ”

Most often, performance measures find their greatest use in helping individual departments to improve service delivery. Here, training is a key. In Montgomery County, Maryland, that fact has been well recognized. By the end of this year, the county expects to have trained all upper- and mid-level managers in performance-measurement techniques. Even some members of the county legislature have attended the training sessions. Bruce Meier, who’s coordinating the county’s measurement effort, says training has led to great improvements in the quality of the measures themselves.

Unfortunately, training is one of the areas that gets hit first by fiscal shortage. “As we keep having budget issues, we just keep eroding management resources,” complains Robert Derrick, the assistant county executive in King County, Washington. He isn’t optimistic about preserving funds for performance-measurement training in years to come.

That’s a pity. Those counties that have made serious managing for results efforts universally report that the benefits are significant. Franklin County, Ohio, has used performance measures to design a successful managed-care approach to children’s services. Dallas County has employed measures to gauge the efficiency of its judges, and ever since the measures began appearing publicly, the judges have been competing against one another to run smoothly functioning courtrooms.

In Maricopa, Fairfax and San Diego counties, managing for results underpins almost every task the county governments undertake. “San Diego had been similar to other California counties in terms of being revenue-driven and always looking to the state or feds to give us more money to do what we wanted to do,” says William Kelly, the county’s chief financial officer. “Then we realized the amount of time and money we were using to find more resources wasn’t as effective as properly using the money we have.”