No matter how you measure performance: it's the results that count: GFOA research has identified six approaches that local governments are using in their performance management processes.

• Author: Shellhorn, Jeffrey
• Position: [PM.sup.2] Connections: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT & MANAGEMENT - Government Finance Officers Association

Performance measurement concepts and applications have grown in use and sophistication since 1943 when the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) first published a report on measuring municipal activities. Today in leading governments performance measures do not stand alone but are part of a comprehensive performance management approach for aligning goals, spending, service delivery, and results.

In a recent GFOA telephone survey, 40 percent of local governments surveyed said they have implemented organization-wide performance measurement. (1) While approaches and resources devoted to performance measurement and management vary widely, in the end these communities are making efforts to focus their resources more strategically through performance measurement and management.

The GFOA Performance Measurement and Management Initiative encompasses a variety of information and services. Resources include recommended practices on performance measurement; the budget awards program criteria, which encourage governments to integrate performance measures into budgets; training and publications on performance measurement; performance measurement and management consulting; and a major research project on the use of performance measurement and management by state and local governments. Based on surveys and interviews conducted as part of this research project, the GFOA's Research and Consulting Center has identified several categories of performance measurement and management systems being used by governments, as shown in Exhibit 1.

The strategic cascading approach and performance budgeting had the highest percentage of use among the approximately 520 jurisdictions (of nearly 1,300 interviewed) who met criteria for having organization-wide systems to measure and manage performance. Many jurisdictions use a combination of approaches. While each jurisdiction's approach has been designed to fit its unique needs, all of the jurisdictions we talked to have integrated performance measurement into their managerial processes to some extent. More information from the GFONs research is available on the GFONs Web site at www.gfoa.org/pm/.

The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, uses performance measures as part of a comprehensive managing for results initiative, "Results Matter" Performance measures and results are reported to the public on the city's Web page, the Citizen's Guide to the Budget...