Real information, real results: the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority uses a logic model to evaluate its operations and service delivery levels, determining if its performance measures are leading to the correct results.

• Author: Roth, Frank
• Position: Best Practices

Many performance measurement programs help organizations discover how well a service is being provided, but they do not always inform the organization's stakeholders about what results are desired. Organizations also face difficulties in figuring out what process to use for achieving the desired outcome. The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA) uses a logic model to evaluate its operations and service delivery levels, determining if its performance measures are leading to the correct results.

Two fundamental questions a performance measurement system needs to address are "How well is the service provided?" and "What is the result of the service?" (1) These were the questions the ABCWUA faced when it was created in 2003. More importantly, the utility's governing board at that time also asked, "Where do we want to be?" and "How do we get there?" Because the organization was just starting out, it had the opportunity to develop its own goals and performance measurement system.

In 2004, the ABCWUA adopted a budget ordinance requiring that a performance plan be connected to the utility's long-range goals. The plan was to contain performance measures that would guide the operating and capital budgets in prioritizing and allocating the utility's financial resources. The ABCWUA wanted to use its performance measures to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness by identifying areas where quality improvement processes should be implemented, and to enhance decision making.

MEETING LONG-TERM GOALS

The performance plan is a component of the ABCWUA's strategic planning, budgeting, and improvement process, as shown in Exhibit 1. The annual operating and capital budgets are based on data from this process, which is used to set performance goals. Every fiscal year, the ABCWUA Board adopts one-year objectives, which are policy directives used to improve performance levels and meet both short-and long-term goals.

A good example of the integration between performance measures and objectives is employee lost time due to illness or injury. Since starting the benchmarking process, officials at the utility noticed that lost workdays were on average three times higher than at other utilities. (2) Excessive lost workdays affect productivity and can cost utilities in a number of ways, including adverse affects on health-care premiums, insurance premiums, and overtime pay. As a result, one of the recent one-year objectives was to reduce the number of employee lost days by 25 percent. To accomplish this objective, the ABCWUA implemented an improved light-duty program to get employees back on the job safely. This new process has provided a clearer understanding of what needs to happen when an injury occurs, including the documentation, payroll coding, and expectations for when injured employees will return to work. In addition, the utility created a $500 safety incentive bonus for all employees if they collectively met the goal of reducing injury...