A Guide to Legislating for Results for Local Elected Officials
Summary Overview of the Legislating for Results Action Guides
After years of talking with local elected officials frustrated about not having good information on which to base program and budget decisions and to use for communicating with citizens, the National League of Cities (NLC) and the Urban Institute (UI), under the guidance of a local elected official advisory committee, launched a project aimed at providing a set of "Municipal Action Guides" as a guide to results-based legislating for local government. The eleven Action Guides represent key concepts related to gathering, analyzing, using, and communicating information in order to “legislate for results.”
Most of what is suggested here applies both to those local governments that already have an on-going performance measurement process and those that do not. It also applies whether the government has a line item, object class, or program budget.
The Action Guides are intended to provide you with a way a way to begin thinking about legislating for results. This overview only provides you with a brief sample of what is contained in the Action Guides which have been published separately by NLC.
Getting information on program progress and results is critical to the council's oversight and decision making roles. This Action Guide outlines ways that a council can get such information.
Most local governments have departments that are already collecting and reporting data regularly on the results of at least some or their activities – such as crime counts, traffic accident rates, library use counts, and response times to calls for emergency services. Because local elected officials are often flooded with information, this Guide focuses on getting useful and understandable information on the results of local government services.
Action Guide 2. Getting Understandable and Good Quality Information on Results
Presentation is a key part of making the information useful. Too often performance information provided by departments is unclear, and difficult to comprehend, especially for elected officials who have little time to pour tons of data. This Guide suggests actions to help assure that information you receive is presented in an understandable, accurate, and useful manner.
Also of great importance is the quality of the data provided to you. “Garbage in; garbage out.” This old adage is equally applicable to the performance information council members receive. Being able to trust the data is very important to local elected officials.
Action Guide 3. Using Outcome Information in Strategic and Program Planning
Good long-range planning is important to successful government. The planning must have relevant and detailed information. This Guide provides suggestions for strengthening long range planning by assuring that the plans focus on the results your community needs.
Strategic planning is an important activity for elected officials to consider the future development of the community. Elected officials should periodically consider where the community wants to be over the next several years and develop a multi-year plan for achieving it. This type of planning can be considerably more valid and useful if it starts with baseline data for the outcomes being sought, and provides annual target values for each outcome sought over the planning period. The annual targets enables elected officials to track progress towards the plan.
Action Guide 4. The Operating Budget
A key element in an elected official’s job is effective budgeting. This requires asking the right questions and getting the right information to develop a worthy budget.
Developing a municipalities’ budget is a major task for elected officials. Budgeting traditionally has focused almost exclusively on money issues. Because the pressures of the budget season can be considerable, council members often make quick decisions based on, at best, partial information on the results that can be expected.. The final test of a good budget is whether it provides services needed to achieve good results and good outcomes for the community and its citizens. Budgeting decisions should explicitly consider the results expected, as well as the costs. What can council members do to make sure the budget will provide the best results for their citizens for the funds spent? That is the focus of this Guide.
Action Guide 5. The Capital Budget
The future is difficult to predict. Decisions require both hard facts about the past and dependable projections as to the likely consequences – and not just consideration of immediate problems. Getting and using such information is the subject of this Guide.
Decisions on capital projects such as new fire stations, local road construction, major water and sewer projects, new libraries, or a new convention center can encumber the community’s funding for many years into the future. These decisions are an important task for elected officials who have the responsibility to make sure that they benefit citizens sufficiently enough to warrant the capital and any added annual operations and maintenance costs. Unfortunately, few capital budgets or capital improvement plans currently include information on the specific benefits and who will directly benefit from them.
Action Guide 6. Reviewing Results and Costs of Key Services and Policies Throughout the Year
Elected officials need throughout the year to encourage actions by their departmental agencies to improve their services to the public. Actions that elected officials can take to help press for such improvements are the subject of this Guide.
Council members make many decisions throughout the year. The time between budget seasons provides opportunity for council members to examine programs and policies more in-depth and in a less hectic atmosphere than during budget season. Performance reviews provide the council with the opportunity to obtain a better understanding of programs and issues and to identify the need for corrective actions.
Action Guide 7. Encouraging/Motivating Personnel to Continually Improve Service Outcomes
Convincing public employees to strive for continuous improvements in the services they provide to the public is not only the role of the chief administrative officer and department heads. Elected officials have a key part in motivating city employees and can play a very helpful, positive, role in motivating employees.
Council member interest in, and use of, outcome information can play a major role in determining where local government employees focus their efforts. The more employees are motivated to produce good outcomes for your citizens, the better the outcomes are likely to be. What council members might do to motivate employees is the subject of this Guide.
Action Guide 8. Motivating Contactors and Grantees to High Levels of Performance
Contractors and grantees also can have major roles in producing results. Financial arrangements can have considerable effects on their behavior. Traditionally, agreements between the local government and contractors or grantees specify how the service will be provided – but without any specification of the quality and results of that service. For example, many local governments contract for garbage collection, waste disposal, public transit, and a variety of human services. The inclusion in agreements of goals relating to results can have considerable motivating power. The incentives should be linked to good, achievable and measurable results. The role of council members and the actions they can take to ensure this is the subject of this Action Guide.
Action Guide 9. Communicating with Citizens and Media
Citizens and their community groups are a major audience and customers for council members. Citizens are likely to have considerable interest in the results of government services as well as tax levels, particularly if that information relates to their neighborhood and special interests. In addition, citizens can be a major source of information to council members in setting priorities and their other deliberations.
The media is also of major interest to council members because of their lines of communication to citizens and their often considerable influence. The media are likely to be interested in outcome information, particularly if it shows bad news.
This Action Guide suggests ways to develop a two-way dialogue whereby the public assists in setting priorities and performance indicators, helps evaluate services, understands what results are being achieved, and can understand and use the resulting information when needed. The Guide also provides suggestions on working with the media.
Action Guide 10. Building Council and Staff Capacity and Interest
Elected officials can quickly become focused on tax and revenue issues and government activities and have little time to focus on results-based government. Some form of education/training in results-based government would benefit most elected officials and allow officials to be fed a “lifetime of good governance.” This Guide provides recommendations for actions local councils might take to become familiar with results based government.
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