Leadership Mandates 

Budgeting for Outcomes - Utilize a Budgeting for Outcomes process. Abide by the actual process, which promotes inclusion, solicits input from outside of city government, determines citizens’ priorities, focuses resources on prioritized objectives, and monitors performance and results. Abandon practice of budgeting based on prior years.

 

Special Revenue Funds – Budget within the limits of recurring revenue. Stop using special revenue funds for the budget deficit.

 

 

Collaboration between Mayor and City Council - Share the administration’s draft departmental budgets with the City Council as soon as these budgets are drafted (months in advance of the year-end deadline). Involve the Council throughout the entire budget process.   Require collaborative approach between the administration and the Council to ensure that the budget fairly includes the objectives of the executive and legislative branches.

 

Performance Measurements and Accountability: Operations – Institute a systematic process for monitoring departmental performance and holding people and departments accountable for results. Publish a quarterly efficiency dashboard for each department that includes performance goals and objective measurements of department performance; the scorecard will not include subjective or qualitative information.

 

Performance Measurements and Accountability: City Contractors – Institute a systematic process for monitoring city contractors’ performance and holding them accountable for results. Where permissible, withhold payment from contractors who fail to perform timely or in compliance with contract specifications, and cancel and re-bid contracts with repeated performance problems or improper deviation from peer-city benchmarks. Ensure that all new contracts afford the city these rights. Publish a quarterly listing of all city contracts and a performance scorecard that includes contract performance timelines and objective measurements of contractors’ performance; the scorecard will not include subjective or qualitative information.

 

Peer Cities Benchmarking - Benchmark current operations and their costs with comparable, peer cities. Ensure operations are at least in line with peer cities. Where outliers exist, undertake further analysis to determine why and whether they require corrective action.

 

Right-Sizing City Government – Right-size city operations, salaries and benefits for current and future population levels and realistic tax revenue projections.

 

Elimination of Wasteful Spending - Eliminate patronage and excessive spending. Ensure all services are competitively and effectively bid and delivered.