Learn About Performance
How Does Metro Plan and Measure Performance?
For several years there has been an increasingly strong movement toward greater accountability and transparency at all levels of government across the nation. With increased competition, increased demand for government resources, and limited additional funding, governments everywhere are looking for ways to better manage and communicate performance. At the same time, independent organizations that set policy on key financial matters for governments, such as the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), have increasingly called for better use of planning and performance information.
Beginning in 2002, the Metro Nashville Government began a strategic planning and performance measurement effort across those Metro departments/agencies that are accountable to the Mayor, as well as any elected officials who chose to participate.
Through this initiative, called “Results Matter,” departments created strategic business plans. A wide array of stakeholders for each department took part in creating these plans, including citizens who serve on boards and commissions, department management, and front-line employees. Strategic business plans are all reviewed and approved by the Mayor. They include:
- Mission statements that are concise and clear
- Strategic goals to be accomplished three to five years out, with measurable targets for the accomplishments of those goals
- Operational programs, each with a clear statement of purpose and a concise set of performance measures to indicate and monitor program performance
Copies of departmental strategic business plans are available here on the Citizen’s Guide to Metro’s Performance.
Departments have created their Results Matter strategic business plans in “waves,” with 19 departments/ agencies with completed strategic business plans by the end of FY05; these 19 are featured in this report and are noted below in bold. By the end of FY06 there were 24 departments/agencies with completed strategic business plans. Organized by their primary alignment with Nashville’s Priorities, these departments were:
Assuring Public Safety
Police
Fire
Emergency Communications Center
Juvenile Court
Sheriff
Justice Integration Services
Providing a Quality of Life That Enhances Our Community and Neighborhoods
Public Health
Public Library
Metropolitan Transit Authority
Planning
Public Works
Nashville Career Advancement Center
Water Services
Codes Administration
Parks & Recreation
Human Relations
Transportation Licensing
Elections
Municipal Auditorium
Ensuring Efficient & Effective Government
Finance
Information Technology Services
General Services
Law
Valuing Our Employees
Human Resources
Metro's Board of Education created a strategic plan in 2002 and then, with significant input from Nashville's citizens in 2007, presented an updated plan for 2007-2014. Details on the MNPS plan can be found at http://www.mnps.org/Page18732.aspx.
All of Metro’s departments/agencies that report to the Mayor, along with elected officials who have chosen to participate, have strategic business plans in place as of July 2007.
With the information reported through departmental strategic business plans, we are able to bring you this report for the first time. For more information about the Results Matter initiative, you can go to www.nashville.gov/finance/results_matter/.