Performance and Accountability

We live in a world of numbers and measurements.  Credit scores, report cards and grades, home value, number of points on our driver's license, bank accounts, personal budgets, business budgets, are all numbers that make like smoother or sometimes more difficult for us.  Even if we are no good at math, it's still the language we use to judge our positions. 

Most businesses, most organizations and increasingly most governments insist on having the numbers, the math, before they make decisions and North Bay Village should be no different. 

I propose to shine a light on our village operations and budget by adding performance measures to every spending decision the village make. Every penny will be accounted for its value rendered.   This will make our processes transparent and reduce the stress on our village staff by clearly stating what's expected, what we will measure and how we will jointly achieve the goals.

This commission and in particular my opponent have refused to do this.  Not ignored the idea, but when it was proposed that the village begin performance measurements, looking at what we spend money on, why we spend it and how well it was spent, Mayor Kreps refused the idea as “insulting to our staff.” and Jorge Gonzalez thought it only applied to employee performance.  Rather than listen and learn, Gonzalez has been telling people that my proposals for performance measurement is simply a ploy to fire staff.  Nothing could be further from the truth but to understand that, you have to be willing to be objective.  Let me give you an example. 

Since 2012, the village has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with a company called SFM.  Part of that contract requires SFM to pressure clean our sidewalks twice per year. 

So the measure is very simple. 

Number of Times Required by Contract 2 years	Number of Times Executed by Contractor 2 years	Activity	Performance Percent
4	1	Clean Sidewalks	25.00%

That's an easy way to see that a contract is not being lived up to while village money is spent.  Now the staff, the commission and most importantly the taxpayers know how the money is being spent and the commission and staff can concentrate on fixing the problem.  That means the value of our dollar is 25 cents.

Measures can get more complicated.  When we look at the police budget, a key performance measure might be number of patrols, or changes in crime rate, or community policing programs.   You get the idea.  This allows the village to see at a glance how well or how poorly money is being spent.  Is that really so hard to follow?  Nobody gets fired.  But they are held accountable for their performance. 

Until we have these two pieces – what do we expect when we spend, and how well did we do – the village is governing by guesswork,   We've seen where that's brought us.  Let's work on what works rather than just blindly reacting. 

North Bay Village deserves better!

Working together towards a cleaner, safer and transparent North Bay Village! 

Mario Garcia

September 10, 2014

www.mariogarcia.org