SUBJECT: Methodology for Performance Measures
That the Council accept the Report of the City Clerk regarding the Methodology used to determine the effectiveness of the Office Performance Measures.
In June, 2002 the Mayor’s Budget Message directed the City Clerk to complete a methodology for Performance and Overview Targets and report to Council in 120 days. The Document also directed the following items be accomplished having been approved as part of the Finance and Infrastructure Committee’s review of the Mayor’s Council Appointee Budget Recommendations in April, 2002.
1. All agendas, agenda reports, and minutes for Council and standing committees should be posted online.
2. The web page for boards and commissions should identify their role in the government process even when there are no vacancies and it should continue to post vacancies as they occur.
3. City Council meeting minutes should extend beyond January of 2000
4.
City
Calendar should have links to standing committee agendas and minutes.
5. City Council synopses should be stored online and should extend beyond June of 2000.
6. An easy and effective online search feature should be developed to locate issues and items from past Council and committee agendas.
7. Systems to support online transactions and applications should be developed.
8. Staff is directed to evaluate other available databases for legislative history legacy and take steps to present the most appropriate system to the Mayor and City Council.
9. All online agendas should reflect any amendments made after the initial printed agenda has been finalized.
10.
All Council
memorandums received should be distributed within 24 hours.
11.
City web
search functions for Council meetings should be coordinated to improve ease of
use by the public and staff.
During the June, 2002 budget process also, the City Clerk ‘s Business Plan contained performance measures and targets for the Office without specifying the methodology for monitoring those measures. The same performance measures and targets were presented to Council in the Office’s Core Services document noting the methodology for overall meaningful data collection on the web-related performance measures would be developed during Fiscal Year 2002-2003 in conjunction with the City Manager’s office and the Information Technology Department. At that time, addressing a critical element of the City Clerk’s workplan, the intent was to develop and/or purchase a citywide data base which would enable the City’s weekly agenda to be created, distributed, tracked and filed in essentially one process, ending in the City Clerk’s Office as legislative history.
In October, 2002 the City Clerk reported to Council in response to the direction to develop a methodology to enable the Office to assess its product in a meaningful way, that Staff had met twice with the “coach” for the City Clerk’s Office and would begin the process and that the majority of business conducted by a City Clerk is dictated by statute, both state and local, and performance measures attributable to the Office, are in fact, a recitation of our daily business responsibilities. The City Clerk reported to Council the status of each of the above items, almost all of which had been accomplished except for the initiation of a search mechanism to allow a search of multiple documents simultaneously. The City’s Information Technology office is currently addressing that issue.
In December, 2002 the City Attorney, the City Manager, the Executive Director of the Agency and the City Clerk co-signed a report to Council on the Council and Redevelopment Agency’s agenda procedures. The Administration was able to include in that Report the results of an informal review of its performance in the agenda process over a four month period. The Report concluded, in all, the Administration distributed 98% of their agenda reports in accordance with their policy (performance measure) and 1.9% of the reports were not.
The City Clerk’s performance measures for that same period with reference to the agenda process would be nearly identical, in that we distribute in hard copy what we receive, and we post on the web what we receive by electronic transmission.
In the absence of an electronic system to track the production of information and its usefulness both to the Office and to our customers, the City Clerk’s Staff literally tracks by hand as much as possible the output of the Office. Hence we were able to report the approximately 171 meetings staffed during Fiscal Year 2001-2002, the 4,100 columnar inch legal publications published, the 3,200 contracts processed and following, to estimate levels for 2002-2003. In the case of the agenda, there are probably upwards of a hundred documents arriving via e-mail each week in connection with the Council and Committee Meeting agendas in progress that week. If it were easily possible to track time for a single memo from arrival to web posting, there might be a benefit in collecting that data. However, the process from receipt to conversion to posting is cumbersome and each memo would have to be tracked and logged manually. Since the posting itself is of primary importance, retracing those activities and/or trying to create a log during the activity might only delay posting and the availability of memos to anyone who visits the agenda website.
Staff is currently tracking the number of inquiries related to specific subjects of interest to our callers and walk-ins in connection with the development of a Point of Service Survey which will be issued in March to our vast customer base, including the Mayor and Council Offices, City Staff in each Department, Board and Commission Members and applicants, past Council Candidates, Council meeting attendees and daily walk-ins. We will place the survey on our website and at the same time, provide an e-mail location for anyone to offer comments on the performance and effectiveness of the City Clerk’s Office.
The City Clerk’s website is a work in progress and will continue to be as we are continually adding content to it in an effort to reach as many interested parties as possible with pertinent and timely information. I do realize much of the work has been done without putting a methodology in place for achieving it. We have used every opportunity and resource available to us to assist in the creation, adds to, and maintenance of our website, in the weekly production of the Council Meeting agenda, and in the day to day operations of the Office and we are successful in that effort.
The survey which will be distributed in March perhaps most corresponds to a methodology to be used in determining whether or not we are meeting our non-mandated goals and we are looking forward to analyzing the results.
Not Applicable
Not
Applicable
PATRICIA L. O’HEARN
City Clerk