Michigan has hundreds of units of local governments. Which local communities offer taxpayers the best bang for the buck? Where do residents get the best services? What are the best practices used by local government leaders and how can those practices be shared across the state?
Until now, it’s been pretty much impossible to answer those questions because no one has kept score in any sort of comprehensive fashion. That could soon change thanks to some innovative local government experts at Michigan State University.
MSU’s new Michigan Local Government Benchmarking Consortium seeks to “bring together cities, townships, villages and counties from all over the state and produce meaningful and relevant performance measures.”
It’s a modest start. So far 30 townships, cities, villages, and counties are taking part. If you want to make a difference in your local community, take a few minutes to speak during public comment period at your next local government meeting. Urge your local leaders to join the benchmarking consortium. The potential is huge to identify best practices, help lagging governmental units improve, and assure limited tax dollars are stretched as far as possible in Michigan’s current period of economic upheaval.
Starting this year, members of the benchmarking consortium are keeping score and measuring each other in eight service areas: fire and emergency medical services, law enforcement, parks maintenance, road maintenance, water and sewer treatment, fleet maintenance, information technology, and emergency dispatch.
In park maintenance, for example, the measures include number of full-time employees per park acre and total spending per park acre. In vehicle fleet maintenance, the measures include the average amount of time a work order is open and the cost per repair job by vehicle and equipment type.
The private sector has performed this kind of competitive analysis for decades. Now governments are steadily picking up the technique, though the majority of Michigan governments are not yet on board. A recent Michigan State survey, published in Michigan Township News, provided two key insights:
Again, go down to your local city or township hall and spur the benchmarking yourself with these questions MSU experts raised in the Township News…
Ask the treasurer what the delinquency rate is on water and sewer bills, or what the rate of return is on investments, or what the average cost is to process a billing invoice. Ask how those rates compare to other local government units. Ask the clerk what the election cost is per voter. Ask the assessor about the average cost to appraise a residential parcel.
The Township News summed it up in words that hold true for any public entity in Michigan, including school districts, state departments, and local governments…
“Michigan’s townships are faced with the bleakest fiscal outlook in recent memory. A culmination of problems — the decline in housing prices, rising foreclosures, and the diminishing market share for U.S. automakers, among other Michigan economies — have placed an increased strain on Michigan’s township governments. Now more than ever, it is important for local governments to do more with less in an attempt to provide a consistent quality of services to the residents they serve.”
One Comment
Excellent idea……but……
The MSU site did not indicate how measurement and analysis is to be done beyond indicating a comparative basis, local unit measure compared to another local unit measure.
Once a comparison is made how does a community use the information to improve their processes, beyond a punitive out of context approach such as “We must do better than community x.”? (Win-lose approach)
Hopefully MSU will recognize the need to establish context for each measure and to assess the quantitative data through the lens of variation over time – for each individual community participating. Reduction in variation (insuring capability, verifying stability and shrinking the process limits) is the goal, not doing better than someone else, since each process is unique as each community is unique. (See, Wheeler, Donald. “Understanding Variation”. SPC Press)
If the metrics are produced by a process in an unstable state or from a process that is not capable of generating improvement, quality progress and long term process improvement will not be realized and participants will soon lose interest.
That is the hard lesson that the domestic auto industry may have learned a little too late (HOPE NOT!).