Effective management in troubled times: members of the Florida Benchmarking Consortium have joined forces to develop common performance measures for their highest-priority local government services..

• Author: Becker, John
• Position: [PM.sup.2] Connections: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT & MANAGEMENT

"In order to improve something, you have to change it. In order to change something, you have to understand it. In order to understand something, you have to measure it." (1)

Local government leaders agonize over how to balance their budgets, wishing they had more--or perhaps better--data about the efficiency, quality, and effectiveness of the services they provide. Many finance officers, city council members, county board members, and citizens wonder how the service performance of their jurisdictions actually compares to that of other local governments. Well, collaborative leadership groups such as the Florida Benchmarking Consortium (FBC) can help provide the answers. The FBC and other statewide and regional benchmarking efforts help local government leaders, citizens, university leaders, and the various industries of local government to have more meaningful conversations about government's most important priorities and where improvement efforts need to be focused. These groups collect and share data, using standardized performance measures that allow member local governments to benchmark the efficiency, quality, and effectiveness of their services as compared to those of other members.

THE FLORIDA MODEL

The FBC's membership has grown quickly and steadily to include participation from 44 of Florida's like-minded local government leaders. About a third are counties, and the rest are cities, along with one fairly unique organization, the Keys Aqueduct Authority. Officials in these self-selected jurisdictions have joined forces to develop common performance measures for their highest-priority local government services. Each member chooses the extent to which it wants to be involved in the FBC, including its leadership contribution and the amount of performance data it will contribute.

Since it was founded in January 2005, the FBC has grown from a fairly simple collaboration-based, collective concept in the minds of a small number of local government managers to the largest active statewide or regional local government performance measurement and benchmarking-focused consortium in the United States. A steering committee made up of managers from member governments directs the group's activities. Subcommittees have been established to oversee the following organizational issues: executive, business/financial, marketing, conferences, strategic planning, technical, performance, grants, training, and university liaison.

Early on, FBC leaders realized that support from a respected university system would be necessary for at least two reasons--the group would eventually need academic research power, and universities are where future local government leaders are born. The University of North Carolina's pioneering work in benchmarking made it clear that the FBC needed a strategic business partner in one of Florida's leading universities, and the consortium has been lucky enough to work shoulder to shoulder with innovative and pioneering leaders from the University of Central Florida (UCF).The UCF Institute of Government has helped with internal consulting, networking, and administrative support. The UCF College of Health and Public Affairs has worked with the FBC in regards to developing teachers, teaching the basics of performance measurement and benchmarking, researching reasonable next steps for organizational leadership, and helping select university student leaders to work with the FBC. And the UCF Center for Community Partnerships has helped the FBC build and expand its...