Syracuse is launching an online performance management program Wednesday that will allow the public to track progress on city projects.

The program, managed by the city’s Office of Accountability, Performance, and Innovation, is designed to improve services in the city through a system of goal-setting and public reporting.

“The purpose of this program is not to pat ourselves on the back,” said Mayor Ben Walsh on Tuesday. “We have set it up in a way that sets the bar high, and as we get closer to that bar or reach that bar, we’re going to raise the bar. We want the goals to get tougher and we want to continue to address new challenges.”

The city established an “objective and key results” process with four objectives:

• Achieving fiscal sustainability
• Increasing economic investment and neighborhood stability
• Providing quality constituent engagement and response
• Delivering city services effectively, efficiently and equitably

Walsh said the results of the program include specific metrics that city officials can use to measure progress on its objectives.

One of the city’s key objectives is that 95 percent of services be delivered by their reported resolution time. The metrics include potholes, water main breaks, road cuts and overgrowth as examples, Walsh said.

The API staff will hold weekly meetings with city department heads to monitor progress on each objective, said Adria Finch, the city’s director of innovation. That progress will be reviewed following a meeting with the innovation division, she added. Four weekly meetings will be held for each objective.

The system is based on a traffic light model, with green indicating progress and yellow and red indicating that the city needs to make improvements.

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“We look at this, we look at the data that’s feeding it and then we’re going and sitting down with the departments and saying, ‘OK, how do we start to move the needle in the positive direction” Finch said.

She added that the goal isn’t to see a lot of green. Once the city makes progress on an objective, Finch said the city will add metrics or make metrics “more challenging.”

The new system is aimed at delivering regular updates quicker than the city’s current system. The performance management dashboard can be viewed on the city’s website.

Walsh said the new program will empower the city to make data-driven decisions.

“We’re here to serve the community,” he said. “It’s not our information. This is the public’s information, and we all need to feel like we have a stake in it and we all need to hold ourselves accountable for it.”

Published on September 4, 2018 at 9:28 pm

Contact Jaspreet: jgill01@syr.edu