Cities
City of Fort Collins, Colorado
PSG worked side by side with the City Council and City Manager to develop their 2005 budget when revenue fell short of projected costs. This trend was predicted to continue into the future. The City was looking for a systemic way to match available resources with community priorities. Through the Budgeting For Outcomes process, the city government became more transparent in its budgeting decisions, created a greater incentive for cross-departmental collaboration, and gave city employees real input on budget decisions. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the process produced a greater sense of trust between the City and community at large. More information regarding Fort Collins' BFO approach is available at: http://fcgov.com/bfo/.
City of Dallas
PSG assisted the City of Dallas as it reinvented its 2006-07 operating budget into a more results-driven, transparent decision-making process. Under the leadership of City Manager, Dallas used PSG's Budgeting for Outcomes principles and tools to break down the budget into more than 400 services/programs, identify performance metrics for each, assign each of them to one of the City Council's eight City-wide goals, and then rank them based on their contribution to those goals.
City of Fort Worth, Texas
In Fort Worth PSG worked with the new City Manager and his senior management team in an "action planning" effort designed to translate the City Council's strategic plan into clear, definable, and integrated plan to change the city's practices. Our work included doing interviews and site visits, drafting a set of recommended "strategic opportunities," and facilitating a retreat with the 25 members of the senior management team to set a direction for moving forward.
City of Spokane, Washington
Faced with a significant shortfall in revenue, the Mayor of Spokane (Jim West) and his cabinet decided to abandon the historical practice of across-the-board cuts to departments. Instead, they hired The Public Strategies Group to help the city design and implement a Priorities of Government budget process to both close a mid-year 2004 fiscal gap and produce a 2005 budget. This process focused the city's budget on the results that citizens care about most and forced city departments to present their budget proposals in the context of how well they support those results.
City of Richmond, Virginia
PSG provided Richmond with a variety of services designed to help transform city government into a results based organization. These included developing a set of integrated performance metrics based on three specific key goals set by the City Council, installing systems that made performance consequential, instituting process improvement strategies to improve results, and redesigning some of Richmond's administrative systems to be more results based.
City of Azusa, California
Since the passage of Proposition 13 about 25 years ago, California cities have scrambled to adjust to a series of voter initiatives, legislative changes and court decisions that have completely reshaped how communities pay for basic services. The City of Azusa (population 46,000) was facing a 10% gap between expected revenues and expected costs in their general fund budget of $29 million. They contracted with PSG to do a top-to-bottom review of everything the city did - from the citizens' perspective. We helped them examine the nature of their structural deficit, set seven citizen priorities, allocate available resources to each priority, and purchase the most effective means to advance the priority results within the money available. The project finished in January, 2004.
City of Columbus, Ohio
In Columbus PSG worked with the Mayor, his leadership team, and the City Council to create and implement a strategic action plan to guide the city's change efforts. The elements of the plan, developed in collaboration with the City's cabinet, City Council and unions, included the creation of a more performance-based budgeting process, a series of customer service initiatives, and stronger collaboration across traditionally "stove-piped" departments.
City of Oakland, California
For the City of Oakland PSG designed a city-wide effort to identify ways for the city government to shed ages-old processes and systems so the city could deliver high-quality services to its residents while still "living within its means." The result was a comprehensive set of reforms - some administrative, some requiring Council action. These reforms positioned Oakland to be a more results-oriented, customer-driven organization, while balancing its budget in difficult financial conditions.
City of Hartford, Connecticut
In the late 1990, PSG worked with the Hartford City Council, City Manager, Mayor, and staff to help develop a vision statement, mission statement, and outcome goals. Based on this work, PSG helped the city manager develop Flexible Performance Agreements with each of her department heads, as well as annual customer surveys. We also worked with the mayor and council to move most of the city's economic development functions into a nonprofit public-private partnership. Following the successful completion of these efforts, the Hartford City Council, Mayor, and City Manager decided to launch a broad scale, city-wide reinvention effort. The centerpiece of the reinvention strategy was to develop a comprehensive performance management system. Other elements included the introduction of gainsharing, improving customer service and leadership training.
City of Fremont, California
In December 1993, the City of Fremont, California (population 150,000) contracted with The Public Strategies Group to evaluate the performance of city government operations and prepare recommendations for broad changes to its service delivery systems. Although Fremont had long been blessed with growing revenues and a reputation as "a city that works," city leaders recognized that in the face of massive reductions in state aid and other fiscal challenges, they had to find a "new way of doing business."
City of Minneapolis, Minnesota
In 1991, the City of Minneapolis was coping with the crunch between shrinking resources and greater demands for service. Sponsored by the Joint Labor Management Committee, initiatives were focused around two pillars: service quality and the quality of work life. Activities were undertaken to improve the quality of services rendered to citizens and to improve the employee work environment.
City of Gloucester, Massachusetts
Bruce Toby, Mayor of Gloucester, engaged PSG to do action planning for the City during the winter of 1996. The City of Gloucester is an old New England city, formerly dependent on a severely declining maritime industry. There have been many different models for development - from tourist center to renewed manufacturing. Their immediate concern was providing better City services at less cost.
City of Pasadena, California
A Pasadena, California non-profit organization, Community Vision Unlimited, was interested in attracting the City government to a focused contribution to the Healthy Cities concept. Work had been done, community-wide to develop a set of dimensions that would describe a healthy City of Pasadena. Each of the dimensions included a set of performance indicators and targets. Community Vision put up approximately $150,000 to hire consultants to assist the City in developing a performance budget whose outcome indicators were linked to the outcomes desired of a healthy community.
City of New Haven, Connecticut
The City of New Haven contracted with The Public Strategies Group to develop an action plan to implement improved delivery of city services. New Haven had experienced several years of budget cuts, different contract negotiations, and time periods when the state was in recession. The project was completed in April 1996.
Counties
City/County of Denver, Colorado
In the City/County of Denver, Colorado, PSG work with the newly elected Mayor to forge five goals from the extensive public listening process of the mayor's campaign and transition process. These goals drive the budget process and the various improvement initiatives in the city. We also assisted in designing the newly formed Office of Accountability and Reform and the Operations Review process. Operations Review gathers performance statistics on city operations, analyzes them and uses them as the basis for regular sessions with the Mayor and department executives to improve city services.
Somerset County, New Jersey
In Somerset County the number of older adults over 60 is expected to grow 45% over the next ten years. They also expect "Baby Boomers" to demand more service quality and choice. The County contracted with PSG in late 2000 to help them position to meet these trends. Through interviews with seniors, family members, service providers, employers, and political leaders, we developed fifteen strategic opportunities. At a summit on aging, we helped sixty-five community leaders decide a plan of concrete actions. This action plan contains specific commitments from across non-profit, public, and private sector partners on six priority topics, such as maintaining health, the caregiver shortage, and developing more choice in housing and care.
Bexar County, Texas
For Bexar County PSG assisting in developing a strategic plan that was centered on community input and was implemented through the budget and a bond election. We began this work with a series of community meetings and focus groups to get extensive input from citizens and customers on what mattered to them. We also ran focus groups of employees and interviewed elected and appointed officials to identify issues and ideas. PSG then developed an assessment of strategic opportunities for the county and held a retreat for elected and appointed officials to determine the strategic direction for the County. Working with the Strategic Management Team, design teams will be formed to design the improvements desired. The planning process and improvements supported a successful bond election.
Sacramento County, California
PSG was asked to conduct a workshop for the top 200 employees of the county to introduce them to the principles of government transformation. County departments were then able to access consulting support from PSG on an as needed basis.
Snohomish County, Washington
County Executive Aaron Reardon served in the legislature the first year the State of Washington used the Priorities of Government process for budgeting. When he was elected as county executive he decided to use the same process at the county (calling it Priority Based Budgeting) and contacted PSG to assist him. PSG worked with the County during the seven month process to support all aspects of the budgeting process from development of citizen priorities to drafting of the budget message.
Multnomah County, Oregon
In order to prepare for the potential, early repeal of a county income tax surcharge which would result in an immediate reduction of the county's general fund budget by roughly $32 million, PSG supported Multnomah County in a Priority-Based Budget setting process. With PSG's support, Multnomah County established six priorities for county government. In the event the income tax surcharge was repealed, County Commissioners would be ready to "purchase" existing programs based on their contribution to producing those priorities. Programs or activities that were determined to contribute less to these results, relative to others, would be subject to elimination in order for the County to rebalance its FY05 budget.
Hennepin County, Minnesota
In 1991, the Minneapolis Foundation retained The Public Strategies Group (then Armajani, Hutchinson & James, Inc.) to analyze the budget of Hennepin County from a "customer" or citizen's perspective. Hennepin County is Minnesota's largest county, while the Minneapolis Foundation is the major community foundation in the state. |
