The interactive dashboard will most likely be developed in the fall 2011.
If you have questions about the report feel free to contact Ed or Leigh Byford in the budget office.
Here’s the link and an excerpt from the report, the dashboard section begins on section E-2:
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CITY OF AUSTIN DASHBOARD
Of the 113 key indicators included in this annual report, 21 of the measures are newly identified as citywide key indicators or citywide dashboard measures. These 21 measures are collectively referred to herein as the City of Austin Dashboard. Organization dashboards are a relatively new concept for city governments, with only a few high-functioning jurisdictions having developed them to date. The idea behind an organizational dashboard is to provide a summarized snapshot of performance for the most important services that a city provides, so that these measures can easily and frequently be reviewed by city staff, Council and citizens. In the City of Austin, the dashboard measures will further improve performance reporting, increase transparency and accountability, and help to achieve the City Manager’s challenge of being the Best Managed City in the nation. These 21 indicators will give City management, City Council, and the residents of Austin a tool for quickly assessing how well the City of Austin is performing.
Building upon the efforts already made by departments during the annual business planning process, the project began by focusing on the 113 key indicators included in this annual report. From there, City staff narrowed the list down to 51 indicators using criteria that the measures provide valuable information regarding citizen quality of life and measure a direct service to the community.
To collect citizen input, 18 graduates from the last two CityWorks Academies were recruited to participate in two evening workshops. The group also participated in an online forum to help with the dashboard selection process. These citizens were uniquely qualified to participate in this project because they have already shown considerable interest in City services by volunteering their time to learn more about the City through the CityWorks Academy. As a result, in addition to having a citizen perspective, they possess a detailed understanding of City services.
This citizen group developed a selection process to narrow the list from 51 to 16 measures. The selection criteria included the following:
• Greatest population impact or impact on marginalized populations
• Impact on quality of life
• Safety and health
• How the measure language resonates and how clear the language is
• Frequency of reporting the measure (prefer more frequent reporting)
• How meaningful the reporting is and whether the measure is expressed in counts or
percentages
• Whether the measure reflects efficiency of operations / gauges optimization
• Future impact on the City of Austin’s sustainability goals, and
• Impact on affordability.
The recommendations of the CityWorks Academy graduates were then reviewed by City management. Fifteen of the 16 recommended measures were approved for the final Dashboard. Two measures related to energy reliability were combined and 6 measures were added in order to reflect a broader range of City Services. The result is the 21 City of Austin Dashboard measures shown below. Prior year data and the 2009-10 measure targets are shown for each measure. These measures have been arranged into the four major service areas outlined in this performance report: Public Safety, Community Services, Infrastructure, and Utilities/Major Business Enterprises. One additional category, Economic and Financial Health, includes two dashboard measures related to job growth and the City’s credit ratings that are best categorized separately from the other major service areas.
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