Performance Measurement

Performance Measurement

Measuring Loveland’s Performance Dividend

This is the fourth year the City will have a dedicated section in its Budget and Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for performance measurement, and the sixth year the City has reported performance data in its annual budget document.  As budgets tighten and difficult decisions are before the City of Loveland in the coming months and years, performance measurement will be even more critical to guiding policy.

As the Budget Message outlinees, the Loveland community will be forced to have conversations about service cuts and/or revenue enhancements.  To ask Loveland residents for additional revenues is not only unpopular, but staff believes it will prove fruitless unless Loveland residents are convinced the City is as lean and cost-effective as possible.

Performance measurement and benchmarking become critical in assessing cost-effectiveness, value, and lean government.  Until the data can show to the most partisan skeptic or the merely concerned citizen alike that the City of Loveland is using the funds the residents pay to the City as efficiently as possible, the public’s focus will be on streamlining City expenditures.  If, however, the City can show that our organization is as lean and effective as possible and yet declining resources do not allow our residents to enjoy service levels they presently enjoy and want in the future, the City might be in a position to ask residents for additional tax resources should future City Councils feel this is necessary.

I believe performance data is the best way to inform this conversation.

With the above analysis as the framework, City staff herewith present 2008-2010 actual data, 2011 projections based on year-to-date trends, and staff’s 2012 forecast given the proposed budget and our understanding of community trends.  The reader should carefully judge for him or herself what they think of the actual results and projected and forecasted results.

For the second year, staff has added icons to indentify whether the performance measure is trending to the positive, (green thumbs up symbol), trending to the negative (red thumbs down symbol).  A performance measure may be showing an upward trend (i.e. the numbers are increasing each year), but an upward trend of a negative outcome is given the thumbs down symbol.  Conversely, a trend might be showing a decline (i.e. the numbers are decreasing each year), and if the item being measured is generally a negative thing (e.g. criminal activity), the downward trajectory earns a thumbs up symbol.

The symbols are intended to help the reader evaluate how the data informs the City’s performance and administration’s view of it, but it is agreed and understood that the trend symbol is a subjective call.  The reader should make their own judgments based on their interpretation of the data.  I welcome any comments or feedback on the trend analysis, questions or suggestions.

Tom Carroll
City Manager

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