Perfomance Measures Move Budget Forward

took another step forward last night when the City Council unanimously approved a set of performance measures designed to guide upcoming fiscal decisions. The measures are based on revisions to a series of goals and objectives approved at the council's Jan. 23, 2012 meeting.

The performance of municipal departments will be measured in four different categories; efficiency, effectiveness, input, and output.

The City Council has been crafting the performance measures for the last three weeks. Their work resulted in a 21 page document which outlines 155 different performance measures spread across 18 goal-oriented action items, which are further grouped within five larger city goals.

Police and code enforcement departments are subject to the largest number of performance measures. The City Council's goal to "enhance a safe and pleasant community", for instance, lists 28 performance measures under action item 3.2, which calls for "effective, data-driven public safety and property standards services."

Things like the number of investigations, hours spent on those investigations and the cost per investigation will be tracked by the police department's criminal investigations team. The patrol team will have to track the number of incidents dispatched, the number of dispatched calls per officer and the hours used for dispatched calls. The code enforcement team will be tracked by the number of rental inspections, cost per rental inspection and the number of business licenses issued.

Another 16 performance measures were drafted to track management of city infrastructure like streets, sidewalks and parking spaces. The city's Department of Public Works will track the number of potholes filled and the hours used to fill those potholes. There is also a performance measure which seeks to track the number of pothole complaints resolved within two working days or less.

There are also measurements to track the completeness and promptness of council packets posted to the city website in advance of City Council meetings.

The full list of performance measures is included in the