BCStat: A Sustainable Approach to “CollaborationStat”

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X231200219
• Author: Johnny Olszewski,Momen Abukhdier
• Date: 01 September 2023
• Subject Matter: Perspective Essay

https://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X231200219

State and Local Government Review

2023, Vol. 55(3) 187 –191

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X231200219

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Perspective Essay

Following his election as Mayor of Baltimore

City in 1999, Martin O’Malley embarked on a

process that took the principles of the New

York Police Department’s CompStat program

for crime fighting, and applied them more

broadly as a management tool for city govern-

ment. In the years that followed, Baltimore

implemented their data-tracking and manage-

ment tool, CitiStat, gathering information on an

array of performance indicators and meeting

regularly with managers from City departments

to have them answer questions about the results

within their agency.

By 2004, CitiStat was being hailed as a cut-

ting-edge program. That year, the program and

then-Mayor Martin O’Malley were honored by

the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and

Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School for

an “Innovations in American Government”

award. CitiStat programs were replicated in cit-

ies and agencies across the globe—and later, as

Maryland’s Governor, O’Malley replicated the

“stat” process across state agencies through

StateStat. The Ash Center (2004) lauded not

only the results of CitiStat, but the proven trans-

ferability of the model, noting its adoption by

governments across the globe, sharing that

“CitiStat is quickly becoming the way govern-

ments manage their services and address the

diverse challenges that they confront.”

However, not long after O’Malley’s depar-

ture from office, both CitiStat and StateStat

have largely vanished from Maryland’s gover-

nance landscape—with StateStat “discontin-

ued” and CitiStat “languishing from inactivity

for months, if not years, at a time” (Wogan

2017). Despite their noted successes in driving

improvement, and the widespread use of Stat

systems across the country and world, the very

1200219SLGXXX10.1177/0160323X231200219State and Local Government ReviewOlszewski Jr. and Abukhdier

research-article2023

1Baltimore County Executive, Towson, MD, USA

2Baltimore County Chief Data and Performance Officer,

Towson, MD, USA

Corresponding Author:

Johnny Olszewski, Jr., Baltimore County Executive, 400

Washington Avenue, Towson, MD 21204, USA.

Email: JohnnyO@BaltimoreCountyMD.gov

BCStat: A Sustainable Approach

to “CollaborationStat”

Johnny Olszewski Jr.1 and Momen Abukhdier2

Abstract

Baltimore City’s CitiStat, a performance management program designed to increase productivity by

requiring key indicators on a regular basis, quickly became a highly lauded model that was replicated

by other governments around the world but that has had its own sustainability questioned. Based

on lessons learned from the CitiStat experience, Baltimore County’s BCStat program has taken a

“three pronged approach” to maximize program benefits and to address the sustainability challenges

faced by CitiStat. Specificially, BCStat is focused on collaborative, cross-departmental priorities; the

Stat team provides data and consulting support; and data literacy has become infused across all

county departments, including programmatic assistance.

Keywords

stat, performance management, data, collaboration