Assessing the Performance of Municipal Police Services Using Data Envelopment Analysis: An Exploratory Study

• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X9903100102
• Published date: 01 December 1999
• Date: 01 December 1999
• Subject Matter: General Interest

18 State and Local Government Review

State an d Local Government Review

Vol. 31, No. 1 (Winter 1999): 18-30

GOVE RNMENT at all levels

—

federal,

state, and local

—

is becoming in-

creasingly interested in perform-

ance measurement. At the national level,

federal departments are busily engaged in

gearing up for implementation of the Gov-

ernment Performance and Results Act of 1993

(Public Law 103-62). The Act requires fed-

eral departments to develop performance

measures, with an emphasis on outcome per-

formance measures, for their various pro-

grams beginning with FY 1998 (GAO 1995).

At the st ate level, Florida, Texas, and Maine

have launched their own major performance

measurement initiatives (Texas State Auditor’s

Office 1997; Florida Office 1997; State of

Maine 1997). Several states (e.g., Colorado,

Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, and Minne-

sota) are busily engaged in statewide and com-

munity “benchmarking” programs (FCGAP

1996a). Three of the better known bench-

marking efforts are “Oregon Options” (Ore-

gon Progress Board 1994), “Minnesota Mile-

stones” (Minnesota Planning 1996), and

“Florida Benchmarks” (FCGAP 1996b).

The Governmental Accounting Standards

Board (GASB), in conjunction with a select

group of state and local governments, has

also been experimenting for some time now

with performance measurement, or what

Assessing the Performance of Municipal Police

Services Using Data Envelopment Analysis:

An Exploratory Study

Rona ld C. Nyhan and Lawrence L. Martin

GASB calls “service efforts and accomplish-

ments (SEA) reporting” (e.g., City of Sunny-

vale, California 1997; Tracy 1996; City of

Portland, Oregon 1995; Tracy and Jean 1993;

Fountain and Roob 1994; GASB 1991). The

idea behind such repor ting is to eventually

have all state and local gover nments rou-

tinely collect and report information about

the efficiency, quality, and effectiveness of

their programs.

Once performance measurement data are

routine ly colle cted and reported at federal,

state, and local government levels, the next

logical step is to begin comparing and con-

trasting the performance of various govern-

ment service providers. These service provid-

ers include divisions within the same unit of

government, contract providers, providers in

differing political jurisdictions, or some com-

bination thereof. Comparing the relative per-

formance of government service providers

assumes that best practices can b e identified

and used as benchmarks for improving the

efficiency, quality, and effectiveness of all gov-

ernment service providers (e.g., Nyhan and

Martin 1997; Martin and Kettner 1996; Spen-

dolini 1992). A potentially useful analytical

tool for making performance comparisons

among government service providers is data

envelopment analysis (DEA).