Municipal Benchmarks: Assessing Local Performance and Establishing Community Standards

513 Pages·2001·30.413 MB·English

by  David N. Ammons

MUNICIPAL

BENCHMARKS

Assessing Local Performance and

Establishing Community Standards

S E C O ND E D I T I ON

DAVID N.AMMONS

/^vSage Publications
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Copyright © 2001 by Sage Publications, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ammons, David N.
Municipal benchmarks: Assessing local performance and establishing
community standards / by David N. Ammons.— 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-2078-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Municipal services—United States—Evaluation. 2. Municipal
government—United States—Evaluation. 3. Benchmarking
(Management)—United States. I. Title.
HD4605.A667 2001

352.3'214'0973—dc21 00-011069

06 07 7 6 5 4 3
Acquiring Editor: Marquita Flemming
Editorial Assistant: MaryAnn Vail
Production Editor: Diane S. Foster
Editorial Assistant: Cindy Bear
Typesetter/Designer: Janelle LeMaster
Indexer: Molly Hall
Cover Designer: Michelle Lee
Contents
Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

1. Introduction 1

2. Performance Measurement and Benchmarking 10

3. Animal Control 26

4. City Attorney 35

5. City Clerk 44

6. Courts 55

7. Development Administration 64

8. Emergency Communications 92

9. Emergency Medical Services 100

10. Finance 109
11. Fire Service 140

12. Fleet Maintenance 175

13. Gas and Electric Services 184

14. Human Resource Administration 190

15. Information Systems 204

16. Library 211

17. Management Services: Executive Offices, Budgets,
and Management Audit 240

18. Parking Services 249

19. Parks and Recreation 254

20. Police 297

21. Property Appraisal 324

22. Public Health 329

339

23. Public Transit
24. Public Works: Engineering and Miscellaneous Services 346

25. Purchasing and Warehousing 368

26. Risk Management 379

392

27. Social Services
28. Solid Waste Collection 398

29. Streets, Sidewalks, and Storm Drainage 406
30. Traffic Engineering and Control 420

31. Utilities Business Office 432

32. Water and Sewer Services 439

33. Performance Milestones 462

References 471

Municipal Documents 483

Acronyms 491

Index 493

About the Author 501
In memory of Jan Ammons and Dot Hudson—
both benchmarks, themselves.
Preface

ity governments need performance benchmarks, if they are serious about
the efficient delivery of quality services. And their citizens need munici­
pal benchmarks, if they are not!
Some years ago, as a local government practitioner, I fielded intermittent
inquiries from council members and citizens who were concerned about our
police department, our parks and recreation department, or our public works
department, and who wondered whether local performance was up to par.
Such questions were difficult to answer back then, except perhaps by anecdote
—my tales of good performance balancing their bad ones—or by resorting to
testimonials or evidence of "busy-ness." Not surprisingly, however, my assur­
ances that the police department was making as many arrests as last year or
that the streets department was laying as many tons of asphalt were hardly
compelling to a caller who doubted that last year's performance was very
good either! Such instances begged for a standard or benchmark against
which local performance could be judged.
Now, as a university faculty member with a specialty in the management of
local government, I still get those questions. My perspective might have
changed a little because my relationship to the caller and the municipality in
question is different and because the locales from which the calls come are
more widespread, but the questions are basically the same. Mayors, council
members, general citizens, and municipal administrators, too, want to know
how to judge the service delivery performance of their local government.
Often, the answers in the past were regrettably incomplete. "Hmm, I think
typical performance is about..." or "I heard some time ago that professional
standards were being considered. Maybe they have been established and
would apply in this case." As one city official, contacted prior to the first edi­
tion of Municipal Benchmarks, said, "Unfortunately, there is no central repos­
itory of such standards."
Well, there is now.
Vll
Vlll MUNICIPAL BENCHMARKS
Mayors, city council members, city managers, department heads, other
municipal officials, and citizens who want a measuring rod for local govern­
ment services can turn to the benchmarks presented in this book. They will
find national standards, "engineered" standards, statistical norms, rules of
thumb, selected statistics from comparative performance measurement proj­
ects, excerpts from actual performance records, and performance targets of a
collection of respected cities.
The list of benchmarks is long—and with the second edition the list keeps
growing and the benchmarks become more and more ambitious. That is the
nature of benchmarks, and it is also the nature of the drive for continuous
improvement.
Acknowledgments

Hfphe preparation of this book turned out to be a bigger project than I imag-
JL ined at its beginning. I am indebted to many persons who have graciously
assisted me along the way. Matt Bronson, Ben Canada, Larry DiRe, Randy
Harrington, and Sonya Smith, graduate students at the University of North
Carolina, helped me with this second edition—much like their fine group of
predecessors, Jordan Davis, Jeremy Chen, Anne Lockwood, and Debra Hill at
the University of Georgia, did do when I was working on the first edition.
Each tackled various data collection tasks and doggedly pursued authorities
who could answer the recurring questions "Are there standards on this?" and
"What does this number mean?"
Alex Hess, Marsha Lobacz, and Edie Hughes of the Institute of Govern­
ment Library at the University of North Carolina tracked down elusive bits of
information for me time after time. My son, Drew, readied various figures for
publication. Elaine Welch, Patt Dower, and Elizabeth Gardner were im­
mensely helpful as I pursued the tedious tasks of cataloging information and
developing tables for the manuscript. The project was probably bigger than
they had imagined, too.
Richard W Campbell, my friend and colleague at the University of Geor­
gia, saw value in this project from the beginning and urged me on. I thank him
again for that.
Above all, I am indebted to the many officials who each added bits and
pieces to the growing collection of material that eventually became the heart
of this volume. Officials in various professional associations affiliated with or
relevant to municipal government responded to inquiries, provided docu­
ments, and offered helpful advice when my pursuits needed to be redirected.
A host of municipal officials scattered across the United States and Canada
were generous with their time and with pertinent documents. Most of all, they
were generous with their words of encouragement, providing reassurance
time and again that this product was eagerly awaited and would be worth the
effort.
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