"Performance Measurement in Municipal Government: Assessing the State of the Practice".

• Author: Metzgar, Judd

Poister, Theodore and Streib, Gregory

Public Administration Review, July/August 1999, pp. 325-334.

As governments are continually challenged to improve the quality of services they provide while facing limited and often dwindling financial resources, the use of performance measures as a result-oriented management tool has increased substantially. This article examines the extent to which performance measures are currently integrated into the budgeting and management process of local governments in the United States. With a response rate of 57 percent from a sample of targeted cities, researchers were able to identify the wide-scale use of performance measures among municipal governments. However, findings varied significantly as to the use of performance measures as a management and decision-making tool. This article examines a multitude of aspects with regard to how and why performance measures...