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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10 - Consultant Services for Performance BenchmarkingCITY OF NEWPORT BEACH CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT Agenda Item No. to July 10, 2007 TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL FROM: City Manager's Office Homer Bludau, City Manager 949/644 -3000 or hbludau @city.newport- beach.ca.us Administrative Services Department Dennis C. Danner, Administrative Services Director (949) 644 -3123 ddanner@city.newport-beach.ca.us SUBJECT: Consultant Services for Performance Benchmarking Initiative ISSUE: Should the City retain the services of Performance Benchmarking Initiative? RECOMMENDATION: consultant to assist with its Services and Retain the services of Phil Batchelor and Associates to assist the City with its Services and Performance Benchmarking Initiative. DISCUSSION: On Saturday, March 24, 2007, the City Council held a Special Meeting in the Friends Room of the Central Library to consider establishing its priorities for the upcoming fiscal year (July 2, 2007 — June 30, 2008). Public input was obtained throughout the meeting. At a regular City Council Meeting held on April 24, 2007, the City Council formally adopted the priorities established at the Special Meeting of March 24th. One of the priorities was defined as follows: Institute an Organizational Performance Improvement Effort through the identification of service benchmarks and data gathering to measure organizational effectiveness. This priority was referred to the City Council Finance Committee to further define the initiative and to develop a scope of work and timeframe to achieve the objectives of the initiative. To date the City Council Finance Committee has held three meetings to discuss the initiative and determine how to proceed with the scope of work. Consultant Services for Performance Benchmarking Initiative July 10, 2007 Page 2 On June 15, 2007, the Finance Committee met with consultant Phil Batchelor to discuss the initiative and hear his thoughts on how to proceed to successfully implement the goals of the initiative. Mr. Batchelor submitted a proposed scope of work to assist the City with the initiative which was further discussed at a Finance Committee meeting held on June 29, 2007. Mr. Batchelor is proposing to assist the City in three key areas: 1. Understand the level of satisfaction that the citizens of Newport Beach have with the City services that are being provided to them. 2. Establish goals for each of the program areas that the City provides by setting performance measurements that will provide competent, responsive and courteous services to the public in the most cost effective and efficient manner possible. 3. Perform an assessment of the existing service delivery systems to determine what actions should be taken to improve the overall productivity of the organization, systems, procedures, staffing, facilities and operations of the City of Newport Beach. To accomplish these three goals Mr. Batchelor has agreed to assist the City by preparing Requests for Qualifications and /or Requests for Proposals from qualified firms to perform these tasks, to review and evaluate the proposals, to interview the qualified firms and to guide the City through the process. The full scope of work proposed by Mr. Batchelor is attached to this report. The cost of the consultant services to assist in this process is $43,500 plus reimbursement of costs associated with the engagement such as transportation, travel, lodging, copying, printing and mailing, etc. The timeline to conclude the initiative is estimated at 7 — 10 months, although it is believed some of the work can occur concurrently. To clearly understand the satisfaction the citizens of Newport Beach have with City services, the first step in the process would be to conduct a survey with the citizens to measure their level of satisfaction. After this initial survey, the City Council will determine how to proceed with the remaining goals of the initiative. Submitted by: Homer L. Bluda , City Manager Attachment: Consultant Proposal Dennis C. Danner, Administrative Services Director Phil Batchelor and Associates P. O. Box 3213 Danville California 94526 (925) 820 7861 philbatchelor@sbcglobal.net Proposal for Assisting the City of Newport Beach with its Services and Performance Benchmarking Initiative Introduction: A successful effort to raise the bar of excellence in the service delivery systems in Newport Beach requires that it be a comprehensive endeavor that includes internal as well as external resources working together. It can not be an exhaustive one -time thrust that reaches an apex and then wanes and gradually returns to it original starting point. This effort will be seen to have been worth the sacrifice when it ultimately becomes a natural part of the thinking and feelings of every employee and person that works for and is associated with the City of Newport Beach. This will be accomplished by continuing to stimulate and cultivate a culture that promotes excellence. Success will be achieved by embracing the organizational values that have been adopted by the city and using them as parameters to establish goals in each of the program areas that the city sponsors. Agreed upon performance measures can be developed that will provide the means to monitor the progress that is being made to achieve each of the goals. Performance measures should be designed to measure results not efforts and need to be established at a level that will continue to stimulate a reach for excellence. Once performance measures are established a continuous evaluation process should be put into place to measure progress and provide correction, coaching and counseling as needed. This process must also have the ability to recognize and reward meritorious service in a timely manner. In order to pursue its goal of continuing to raise the bar of excellence the City of Newport Beach may want to consider the following three objectives: Objective One: Understand the level of satisfaction that the citizens of Newport Beach have with the services that are being provided to them. Objective Two: Establish preliminary goals for each of the program areas that the city provides by setting performance measurements that will provide competent, responsive and courteous services to the public in the most cost effective and efficient manner possible. Objective Three: Perform an assessment of the existing service delivery systems to determine what actions should be taken to improve the overall productivity of the organization, systems, procedures, staffing, facilities and operations of the City of Newport Beach. This should include recommendations for adjustments of the preliminary goals set in Objective Two, and for prioritization of major actions. Objective One: Understand the level of satisfaction that the citizens of Newport Beach have with the services that are being provided to them. The citizens of the City of Newport Beach are the customers who are being served by the employees who operate the city government and the ones' whose taxes pay for the cost of providing these services. These citizens have a right to expect that their city government will be operated in a competent, courteous, responsive manner and that their tax dollars will be utilized in an effective and efficient manner. It is important to ask the citizens on a regular basis how they feel they are being served. Do they feel the city is serving them well? Are they treated with respect when they do business or have contact with city employees? Do they believe that the services they receive are effectively administered? Are the city departments providing services in a responsive manner? Are the facilities and infrastructure at a level that is satisfactory to them? How do they evaluate the level of services received from the various city departments? Are there services that are not currently being provided that the citizens believe should be provided? How can the city know what the level of satisfaction is among its customers if it does not ask them? Asking the citizens what they think shows that the city respects them and values their opinions. It can also provide a database of what is working well and what needs to improve. This information can serve as valuable input to help the city staff to focus their attention and give priority to those areas of service that need the most assistance. The information that is obtained from a citizens survey will not only help the city to know how it is doing today but will serve as a baseline to measure against in the future. The data obtained from the survey can also be used to compare the satisfaction level of the citizens of Newport Beach with the opinion ratings of citizens from other cities of comparable size, demographics, geography or economic basis. There are a number of organizations that specialize in surveying the opinions of citizens through mail surveys and/or interviews. Some of these organizations have compiled large databases that allow for comparisons against national norms. Objective One: actions to be taken by the consultant: • Prepare an RFQ to be sent out to qualified organizations that can perform a survey of the citizens of the city. • Send the RFQ to those organizations that are qualified to conduct a statistically balanced and representative sample of the opinions of the citizens of Newport Beach. • Work with city staff to screen the number of qualified survey organizations down to a number that will be interviewed by the RFQ Committee. • Conduct a reference check to determine the satisfaction level of other entities that have previously utilized each firm that will be invited to an interview. • Meet with the RFQ Committee to select the firm to perform the survey. • Once a qualified firm has been selected, work with the RFQ Committee to: • Identify the methodology that will be utilized to survey the citizens. • Identify how many people will be surveyed. • Identify what demographics will be considered. • Identify key customer groups other than residents (e.g. architects and engineers who work with the Planning and Building Departments) that should also be surveyed in addition to the general populace. • Identify what questions will be asked. • Identify how many attempts will be made to obtain information from each citizen that is randomly selected-for interview. • Identify when the survey will be conducted. • Identify which jurisdictions will be identified as appropriate for comparison purposes. • Determine an agreed upon price for the engagement with a provision or option to perform follow -up surveys in the future. • Determine the format and content of the final report that will be delivered to the Finance Committee and ultimately to the entire City Council. • Establish a deadline for completion and delivery of the final report. • Coordinate with staff the preparation of an engagement agreement. • Obtain approval from the Finance Committee/City Council or the City Manager as appropriate to enter into an engagement agreement. • Coordinate with the survey organization's contact representative to determine the progress that is being made to stay on schedule as the survey is underway and keep the RFQ Committee members apprised of their progress. • Schedule a presentation before the Finance Committee and the City Council for the survey firm to report their findings. • Contact or visit other agencies that have completed citizen surveys and obtain any information that will benefit the City of Newport Beach in this process. Timeline for Objective One: The variables that will impact the timeline needed to complete the tasks outlined above for Objective One include the length of time required to sign an agreement with the consultant, the availability of the members of the RFQ Committee for meetings to interview prospective firms, the availability of the firm selected to begin the survey process, the complexity of the survey scope that is to be negotiated and the decision to use mail, phone calls or both to survey the citizens. Depending on the impact of the factors mentioned above Obiective One tasks would normally be completed within a sixty to ninety day time period 3 Objective Two: Establish preliminary goals for the program areas that the city provides by setting performance measurements that will provide competent, responsive and courteous services to the public in the most cost effective and efficient manner possible. Once the results of the survey are available, the city will be better informed of how the citizens feel about the services that are provided to them by the city. Comparative data from other cities will also be available. This will enable the staff to begin the process of reviewing and preparing appropriate performance measures for those services that will be benchmarked in the future. It is important for each of the city departments to give thought to the areas that are to establish performance measures. However, care should be taken to not identify too many measures for any one department as it will be overwhelming. It is well to remember that too many priorities equates to none at all and the city does not have to establish all their performance measures the first year. Once performance is deemed to be acceptable in one area additional measures can be added in the future as other program areas receive the spotlight. Top performers that utilize "best practices" can also be identified and efforts can be made to communicate with them to obtain an understanding of what they do and how they do it. A great deal of information may be obtained from them by email or from visiting their websites and in some cases it might be worth the effort to visit one or more of these jurisdictions. After the city has had an opportunity to consider those areas that should be benchmarked they are in a position to work with those firms that specialize in determining performance measures. There are a number of firms that have established large databases of performance measures that are available to assist the city. They can provide detailed lists of measures that have been used by other jurisdictions and can help the city to determine which performance measures should be utilized to meet the objectives and goals of the city. These firms can also assist the city in identifying a number of other jurisdictions that can be used for comparative purposes. Most of these firms are also able to provide training for the city staff and some will provide ongoing maintenance to help their customers continue to have access to their databases. Objective Two: actions to be by the consultant: • Prepare an RFQ to be sent to qualified firms that have had substantial experience in establishing performance measures in cities and counties. • Send the RFQ to those organizations that are qualified to work with the city to provide a wide variety of performance measures, training and has a wide sampling of other jurisdictions that can be used for comparison purposes. E • Work with city staff to screen the number of qualified organizations down to a number that will be interviewed by the RFQ Committee. Conduct a reference check to determine the satisfaction level of other entities that have previously utilized each firm that will be invited to an interview. • Meet with the RFQ Committee to select a firm that will provide performance measures, training and work with city staff to assist as needed in the implementation process. • Once a qualified organization has been selected, work with the RFQ Committee to: • Identify the methodology that will be utilized to establish performance measures for the city. • Identify those areas that need to be measured based on the input from staff and the results of the citizens' survey. • Identify the jurisdictions that will be selected for comparison purposes. • Identify the amount of training that will be required by the city staff in order to establish and maintain their own performance measures in the future. • Identify the desirability of continuing to work with the selected firm to maintain, monitor and adjust the performance measures in the future. • Determine an agreed upon price for the engagement with a provision or option to perform additional work in the future if needed. • Determine the format and content of the deliverables that are to be prepared by the firm that is selected. • Establish a deadline for completion and a delivery date for the final report. • Consult with the City Manager to determine a schedule for the engagement of the city departments to complete the work required by the consultant in developing the performance measures. • Coordinate the preparation of an engagement agreement. • Obtain approval from the Finance Committee and the City Council to enter into an engagement agreement. • Coordinate with the firm that is selected to determine a recommended plan to institute performance measures for each of its departments. • Contact or visit other agencies that have successfully implemented performance measures in order to gain an understanding of the best approach to doing the same in the City of Newport Beach. • Keep the Finance Committee members apprised of the progress and adherence to the agreed upon timelines and schedule. • Schedule an initial presentation before the Finance Committee and a final presentation before the City Council for the firm and the city to report their findings. Timeline for Objective Two: The variables that will impact the timeline needed to complete Objective Two include the length of time the survey firm takes to complete the citizens survey and the other tasks 5 associated with Objective One, the amount of time needed by staff to determine what performance measures would be desirable, the availability of the firm selected to begin their engagement to help establish performance measures, provide comparison listings, and databases. It should be noted that the RFQ for this objective can be completed and distributed while the work is still underway for Objective One. Depending on the impact of the factors mentioned above, Objective Two tasks would normally be completed within a sixty to ninety day time period, largely concurrently with Objective One. Objective Three: Perform an assessment of the existing service delivery systems to determine what actions should be taken to improve the overall productivity of the organization, systems, procedures, staffing, facilities and operations of the City of Newport Beach. First it is important that the citizen survey information be understood as to how the public perceives the city is doing in serving their needs. Next this data is analyzed and used in conjunction with the preliminary goals and performance measures established in Objective Two to establish performance measures and benchmarks to be used in the assessment. Then the city is in a position to undertake a performance assessment of the city's operations and organization. Even if the city is diligent in establishing performance measures and benchmarks, the attainment of excellence will depend on the capability of the city's service delivery systems to achieve this noteworthy goal. There are many firms that specialize in helping public agencies assess the overall effectiveness and efficiency of their organization and operations. It is an established practice in both the private and public sectors to assess productivity capacity by scheduling periodic audits or assessments by independent third parties that specialize in making these reviews. An operations audit or assessment may include an analysis or diagnostic review of operations, budget, organizational structure, the effectiveness of staffing levels, workload assignments, shift scheduling, management practices and policies, systems review including the use of technology and communication systems, an examination of the financial viability of the city and a review of the checks, balances and division of responsibilities within the city. The scope of audit and assessment work could include a very wide range of tasks and assignments. These would need to be defined by working with the members of the City Council and the City Manager, the Administrative Services Director, department heads and other staff members. The firm that is selected to perform the assessment could be asked to provide a number of deliverables such as the following: • Recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of each of the city departments. 0 • Recommendations on how each department could increase its productivity by revising its organizational structure, deleting duplication or ineffective processes or procedures. • Recommendations that will help position the city to meet future challenges and needs in the community. • Recommendations of any actions that will prepare the city to be better able to handle emergency responses. • Recommendations for the potential to eliminate, streamline or consolidate services. • Recommendations for the development and implementation of effective training programs. • Recommendations for the best utilization of city personnel and the adequacy of staffing levels. • Recommendations that would allow the city to enhance collaboration efforts with other public, private, non profit, regional, state, or federal agencies. • Recommendations on how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its information technology systems. • Recommendations to improve internal controls and safeguards in the city's finance systems and procedures. • Recommendations that will assist the city in developing an environment that cultivates respect among staff members and between staff members and the public, promotes integrity and endorses the pursuit of excellence. • Recommendations that will evaluate options for service, i.e. increasing services in one department at the risk of reducing services in another department. • Recommendations to revise the preliminary goals set in Objective Two. • Recommendations regarding the need to adopt or revise the city's code of ethics. All recommendations would have to be realistic, include an estimate of the cost of implementation as well as any anticipated savings that would be realized by the city if they are put into place. Objective Three: actions to be taken by the consultant: • Work with the RFP Committee and the city staff to identify the scope of the assessment and to determine the desirable deliverables. • Prepare an RFP to be sent to qualified firms that have had a proven track record of performing comprehensive performance assessments and audits. • Work with city staff to screen the number of qualified organizations down to a number that will be interviewed by the RFP Committee. • Conduct a reference check to determine the satisfaction level of other entities that have previously utilized each firm that will be invited to an interview. • Meet with the RFP Committee to select a firm that will perform the assessment. • Once a qualified firm has been selected, work with the RFP Committee to: 7 o Identify the members of the team that will perform the audit and discuss their qualification and level of involvement in the project. o Confirm the timeline and starting date for the team's engagement to begin. o Identify the process that will provide information, data, records and access to the city's book, records and staff. o Review the agreed upon milestones that will be used to measure progress on the project. o Review the agreed upon format and content of the final report and other deliverables that will be provided to the City Council and staff. o Review the details of the agreed upon price for the engagement. o Coordinate the preparation of an engagement agreement. o Obtain approval from the Finance Committee and the City Council to enter into an engagement agreement. o Keep the Finance Committee members apprised of the progress and adherence to the agreed upon timelines and schedule. Schedule an initial presentation before the Finance Committee and a final presentation before the City Council for the assessment firm to report its findings. Timeline for Objective Three: The variables that will impact the timeline needed to complete Objective Tbree include the length of time needed to complete Objective Two, the availability of the firm selected to perform the assessment as well as the availability of the firm's team members who will be assigned to the project and the complexity of the scope of the assessment. In order to accelerate the process of identifying and awarding a contract to the firm that is to perform the assessment process, the preparation of an RFP should begin prior to the completion of all the work associated with Objective Two. Depending on how comprehensive the scope of the assessment is, this objective would normally be completed within a 90 to 120 day time period from the time the engagement begins. Cost of Consultant: The cost of the consultant services to assist in the process outlined above would be $43,500 plus reimbursement of costs associated with this engagement such as transportation, travel, lodging, copying, printing and mailing, etc.