Measuring government performance: experimenting with service efforts and accomplishments reporting in Portland, Oregon.

• Author: Tracy, Richard C.

Council, budget analysts and the public use the city auditor's yearly Service Efforts and Accomplishments Report in many ways during the annual review of budget requests.

The performance of government is a continuing subject of debate between citizens, elected officials and government managers. For the most part this debate revolves around the amount of government spending and the level of taxes. In the past several years, however, interest in government performance has begun to move from what goes into government programs to what comes out. Citizens and government officials are concerned not only about the amount of spending but whether government programs are achieving intended results at a reasonable cost.

The need for better information to measure and monitor government performance has spawned a number of efforts at the federal, state and local levels over the past several decades. Some of these efforts have proved disappointing while others have had continuing success and benefits for their governments. Although public interest in government performance is driven in large part by taxpayer dissatisfaction with the value received from taxes provided, public managers also are influenced by the quality revolution in the private sector and believe these new management principles should apply to public enterprises as well.

This article discusses the experiences of the Office of the City Auditor in Portland, Oregon, with performance measurement and reporting during the past three years. The article will describe the process used by the Portland city auditor and city departments to define, collect, audit and report information called service efforts and accomplishments (SEA) information. In addition, the article will assess impacts of SEA reporting to date, lessons learned and continuing challenges to successful implementation.

Designing the SEA Report

The elected city auditor of the City of Portland, Oregon, is authorized by city charter to provide comprehensive auditing services in order to promote accountability and help improve the performance of city government services. In 1988, the audit services division of the city auditor's office was authorized to pursue experimentation with the concept of service efforts and accomplishments reporting.

A 1991 test of the feasibility of SEA reporting in Portland found that it would be possible. Auditors concluded that sufficient, reliable data existed in city departments to support an SEA reporting effort and that city managers generally were willing to participate in the process. While better effectiveness and efficiency indicators were needed, the feasibility study recommended preparing an annual SEA report that would include refined performance indicators and the results of a citizen satisfaction survey. Since the feasibility test, the audit services division has prepared and issued an annual report on the performance of the city's largest services in 1992 and 1993, with a third annual report due in January 1994. This report is issued not as a part of the city's annual financial report but as a separate document emanating from the auditor's office.

The City of Portland Service Efforts and Accomplishments Report contains information on the performance of the city's six largest services: police, fire, parks and recreation, water, wastewater and transportation. These services comprise about 75 percent of the city's staffing and spending. The report displays information on each service organized in four sections:

* a brief description of the service mission, goals, objectives and major activities;

* background information on service area spending and staffing levels;

* service workload and demand data; and

* performance data on service results, outcomes and efficiency.

To aid the interpretation and evaluation of the information, several different kinds of comparison techniques are used. Spending and staff levels are compared to six other cities: Seattle, Sacramento, Denver, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Charlotte. Exhibit 1 illustrates a chart used in reporting these comparative data. In addition, five years of Portland data are displayed for each indicator so that...