Why CitiStat Makes Sense for WindsorDraft 1.0/01.16.04
WHY CITISTAT MAKES SENSE FOR WINDSOR
Critical Thinking to Help Shape Our Dialogue on Using CitiStat to
Nurture Cost Savings and Greater Government Accountability
A Report to His Worship, Mayor Eddie Francis
Prepared by:Susan Southern-Braiden
Draft 1.0
January 16, 2004
- A Justification for CitiStat
- What Quality of life do our citizens enjoy in the City of Windsor?
- As the stewards of our city’s well-being, could we be doing better?
- How Can CitiStat Help Windsor Tackle Crime, Poor Health, Big Budgets and Renewed Accountability?
- Where do you look to start saving money?
- Six Simple Rules for Launching CitiStat
- Reference Materials
“Governments that succeed in the New Economy will be entrepreneurial and innovative; rely heavily on information technology and the Internet to accomplish their missions; break down the walls between government and its citizens; rely on performance standards and accountability; reform civil service; foster high-quality and timely delivery of public services; revise their actions based on regular feedback from citizens; and partner with a host of public and private organizations to accomplish their public mission.”
-- Economic Development Strategies, Technology & New Economy Project,
The Progressive Policy Institute.
In the three years since the program’s inception in Baltimore, Maryland, CitiStat has been adopted by cities not only throughout the U.S., but as far away as Europe and Iraq, and as close as home as Chatham, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. While these cities took diverse approaches to how they implemented the program, there are some significant things they have in common: their approach was often low-tech (using only excel spreadsheets and existing office technology), their investment minimal (redeploying existing staff and resources), and their commitment to embracing all staff as stakeholders in the process of shaping and refining the culture and standards paramount. The most successful cities
The CitiStat processes and culture are based on Four Tenets:
- Accurate and Timely Intelligence;
- Effective Tactics and Strategies;
- Rapid Deployment of Resources; and,
- Relentless Follow-Up and Assessment.
These guiding principals became the foundation of vastly improved services, unprecedented cost savings, a significant reduction in crime, and the transformation of a city defined by a culture of failure.
A JUSTIFICATION FOR CITISTAT ...
"Baltimore by most measures had become America's most violent city.
For the sixth year in a row, America's most addicted city."
-- Mayor Martin O'Malley.
In 1999, Martin O'Malley announced that he was going to clean up Baltimore. It was a city riddled with drugs and violent crime, poor economic development, and roads and sewers in disrepair. As the new Mayor, O'Malley created a program called "CitiStat". He borrowed the idea from former New York Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple, whose CompStat program used computers to map crime and reduced murders from 2,000 a year to under 700. The police called it "putting cops on the dots" -- dispatching officers to where they were needed the most. Martin O'Malley took this same principal of gathering data and using it to better dispatch resources, and applied it across all agencies city-wide in Baltimore.
Within the first year that CitiStat was implemented, violent crime went down 24%; visits to hospital ERs due to drug overdoses went down 25%; shooting deaths went down by 36%. Equally dramatic was the economic by-product of the plan: an estimated savings of $13.2 million. By the end of the second year, the total savings had risen to almost $44 million. Now in the program's third year, Baltimore has reduced violent crime by nearly a third - 30% - in just three years -- the largest violent crime reduction of any major city in America.
But that's Baltimore, and this is Windsor. We don't need a program like CitiStat to take a timely and accurate look at where the problems are, or what resources we've got had to fix them, or to make adjustments along the way. Or do we?
Going into 2004, we have a debt of almost $250,000 million; we're paying $69,000 per month for vacant space in the Canderel building; and we're facing costly litigation on a number of other fronts.
If ever there was a time to commit to finding ways to cut costs, increase revenues, and create more accountable governance, it is now.
* * *
“In order to change the outcomes produced by government, you have to change what government does. CitiStat changes what government does, by measuring what it produces and creating a mechanism to make timely changes…. CitiStat is helping us replace a culture of delay and avoidance with a culture of accountability and results-monitored by technology-that is permeating every city agency. It puts information into the hands of many managers, rather than a few. And this shared knowledge allows government to change and adjust more quickly to better serve the public.”
-- Martin O'Malley
Perhaps we have a glimpse into the urgency of the challenges that drove Baltimore to create a CitiStat, but how does that compare to our own reality?
What quality of life do our citizens enjoy in the City of Windsor?
According to Windsor Police Services, between 2002 and 2003, crime statistics rose on every front...
YR2002/YR2003
Violations Against the Person 2,559-> 2,609 (+ 50 / 1.9%)
(murder, assault, sexual assault, robbery)
Violations Against Property13,676-> 14,891 (+1,215 / 8.2%)
(arson, b&e, motor vehicle thefts, theft, fraud, mischief)
Other Criminal Code Violations24,107-> 26,216 (+2,109 / 8.0%)
(prostitution, firearms/weapons, drugs, traffic)
Accidents, fatalities and Motor Vehicle violations, including impaired driving, also increased between 2002 and 2003.
[Windsor Police Services, Crime Statistics
According to Census data from Statistics Canada reported in the year 2000, more than 15% of all of the citizens of Windsor are living in poverty...
* 20% of Windsor's children live in poverty; and so do
* 26% of people with disabilities,
* 35% of people who are minorities, and a staggering
* 45% of our elderly women.
In Canada, people with low incomes are more likely to suffer more illness and die sooner than people with higher incomes.
In 1997 the Windsor-Essex County Food Security Steering Committee, which included the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit and Information Windsor, produced a report called "Is There Food For All...in Windsor-Essex County?" The analysis of this information showed 14 key problem areas or "gaps", and drew attention to the difficulty people have accessing community services and assistance programs. It pointed out that consumers learn about programs in haphazard ways. One focus group participant stated: "You gotta know who to ask...You gotta know where to go to ask and you gotta know what to ask when you get there... And very, very few people know the process that you have to go through to find out how to get the things that you can get."
[Windsor-Essex County Food Security Steering Committee. (1997).
"Is There Food For All...in Windsor-Essex County? Technical Report".
In 1996 in Windsor and Essex County, 52% of the population were regular drinkers, with 13% of the population classified as binge drinkers (most often associated with motor vehicle injuries). 10.5% of male drivers reporting that they engaged in drinking and driving within the past year. 25% more females were hospitalized for motor vehicle accidents than in the rest of Ontario. The male suicide mortality rate was 66% higher than Ontario as a whole. The number of teen pregnancies is on the rise, and almost half of the people engaged in short-term sexual relationships engage in unprotected sex, putting themselves and others at risk for sexually transmitted diseases.
[Windsor-Essex County Health Unit's 2003 "Community Health Profile"
Additionally, the "Community Health Profile of Windsor," 2001, suggests that rates for death, disease and birth defects in Windsor are the highest in the province, likely attributable to chemical pollution. The study reported that males in Windsor have a 44% increase in diabetes and a 60% increase in diseases of the urinary system over the Ontario provincial rate. It also reports that females in Windsor have a 30% increase of disorders of the breast, that and newborn boys show a 65% increase in congenital heart defects, over the provincial rate.
["Community Health Profile of Windsor, Ontario, Canada: Anatomy of a Great Lakes Area of Concern"
by Michael Gilbertson and James Brophy, 2001
In 1996, the Essex-Kent-Lambton District was identified as one of the three most under-serviced areas in the province when it comes to access to physicians, with less than 75 general practitioners and family physicians for each 100,000 people in these areas. Since then, the number of physicians has continued to drop in Windsor.
2001 Census data reported that...
- 11.7 % of people aged 20-34 have less than a high school graduation certificate, 18.2% of those aged 35-44, 29.5% of those aged 45-64
- we have a 7.5% unemployment rate.
- almost a third of our population (28.26%) are immigrants, with 58,180 of the 205,865 people living in Windsor in 2001 speaking neither English nor French as a first language.
- more than one third of our citizens don't own their homes, they rent them. ( 35% of the 83,825 dwellings (29,430) are rented)
- of the 57,085 families living in Windsor, almost 20% (11,330) of them were headed by single parents, with 85% (9,590) of the lone parents being headed by women.
[Statistics Canada, “2001 Community Profiles”
As the stewards of our city's well-being, could we be doing better?
“We can no longer view the funds city government receives from residents, businesses, the state and the federal government as entitlements. Taxes are investments - in our children, in our adults, in our infrastructure and in our economy. Those who invest in Baltimore have a right to expect a return on their investment - or they will go to another jurisdiction and invest there. We must make wise use of our investors' capital, and we must produce results.” - Baltimore Mayor, Martin O’Malley.
How Can CitiStat Help Windsor Tackle Crime, Poor Health, Big Budgets and Renewed Accountability?
The effectiveness of Baltimore's CitiStat program is based on the idea that "things that get measured are things that get done". O'Malley believes it's unreasonable to expect anyone to run a large organization without having the information needed to make informed decisions. CitiStat provides the means to do this. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, O'Malley believes that city government should try to do a few things well, like fight crime and grime; provide opportunities for kids; and create an environment that welcomes private investment.
"CitiStat is central to making these investments produce results. Technology, transparency and diffusion of decision-making responsibilities is allowing government to be faster, smarter and more accountable, and change tactics and strategies more quickly.
In order to change the outcomes produced by government, you have to change what government does. CitiStat changes what government does by measuring what it produces and creating a mechanism to make timely changes.
CitiStat is helping us replace a culture of delay and avoidance with a culture of accountability and results, monitored by technology that is permeating every city agency. It puts information into the hands of many managers, rather than a few. And this shared knowledge allows government to change and adjust more quickly to better serve the public.
CitiStat is raising expectations in government and outside government. Residents are seeing improvement, and they can check CitiStat reports on our website, every week. Technology is making government more open, more transparent, and therefore more accessible and accountable."
Baltimore also has CitiStat offshoots, such as KidStat where they look at the lives of kids at risk, and reach out through programs such as the BELIEVEmobile; HomelessStat, where they try to break the cycle of homelessness; and DrugStat, which measures the effectiveness of drug treatment programs.
Baltimore used 4 fulltime employees to launch and manage CitiStat. (Our closest municipal partner, Chatham, Ontario, estimates that it also takes them 4-5 FTEs to run CK-Traax -- Tracking Results to Advance Accountability and Excellence -- their own hybrid version of the CitiStat program).
Both Chatham and Baltimore began by asking their departments and agencies to describe the services they provide, and the standards that they hold themselves to. This allowed them to create a set of metrics by which services could be tracked and assessed. Departments then enter data into a simple computer program, and every two weeks produce a report for the mayor highlighting important trends, trouble spots and continuing challenges. Graphs, charts and maps help illustrate where problems are and what resources can be deployed.
"What Citistat does is create an immediate timeline and an unassailable paper trail - complete with maps, charts, and photographs - of performance, punctuated in two-week spans. What it gives the people who run Baltimore is astonishing knowledge of their city. There is an immediacy to the program that no monthly or quarterly review in other cities can match." -- Lenneal J. Henderson
The Baltimore CitiStat Program: Performance and Accountability
Where Do You Look to Start Saving Money?
"CitiStat data are generated, displayed, interpreted, and used to accomplish better service delivery to citizens and more employee accountability. They are also used to report on the performance expectation of federal and state agencies funding local initiatives".
CitiStat's First Year: Estimated Total Savings - $13.2 million
- $6 million in the reduced overtime
- $5 million in reduced costs and increased revenues
- $1.2 million in reduced absenteeism.
For a more detailed overview of how Baltimore set out to achieve these cost savings, refer to:
[“Managing for Success: Report by the Greater Baltimore Committee and Presidents' Roundtable”
Recommendation Highlights
and also,
["The Baltimore CitiStat Program: Performance and Accountability"
pages 25-28 -- "CitiStat: Lessons of Performance, Accountability and Change"
study prepared by Lenneal J. Henderson
and the
["2001 and 2002 CitiStat Benefits" chart on page 40].
Henderson's study also indicates a significant savings was achieved "largely through the reduction of excessive overtime, workers compensation, and unchecked absences. When employees frequently failed to show up for work, others had to assume their work responsibilities. Substitute employees frequently had to work out of title (working on tasks not officially included in their job description), and the city paid for the resulting inefficiencies and mistakes. The city was also exposed to litigation attributable to these mistakes. Typically, the low quality of city services caused significant and adverse inconvenience and even injury to citizens, businesses and other institutions in the city. CitiStat now monitors the number of employees on sick leave, disability leave, and absences to enhance the productivity and efficiency of the city workforce. The critical link between the behaviour of city employees and the capacity of city government to provide quality goods and services is a key element in the CitiStat philosophy. Thus, human resource management and program implementation are strongly interrelated in the CitiStat process".
CitiStat's success was also boosted by attracting investment through new public, private and non-profit sector financial partnerships; as well as by incentivizing saving internally. A formal incentive program was created to reward city employees for suggestions that resulted in cost savings or significant improvements in service.
Six Simple Rules for Launching CitiStat
The following recommendations were made by the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. We have heard these same philosophies reiterated in our meetings with senior city management from both Chatham, Ontario and Detroit Michigan. The report wisely observes: "CitiStat is not an off-the-shelf product. It is a system that must be adapted to fit the particular needs and circumstances of the agency. Distributing spreadsheets to departments and scheduling meetings will not change the way that government operates. To succeed, CitiStat requires the following six elements:"
1. Commitment begins at the top.
2. Good analysis requires a dedicated staff.
3. Start somewhere.
4. Get early wins.
5. Expand and adapt.
6. Look for horizontal improvements.
The details of these six elements is outlined in pages 7 through 12 of the Institute's report, "Can CitiStat Work in Greater Boston?".
REFERENCE MATERIAL:
The Corporation of the City of Windsor
“Corporate Services – Budget”
The Corporation of the City of Windsor
“Council Documents”
Windsor Police Services
“Crime Statistics”
Windsor-Essex County Health Unit
“Community Health Profile – 2003”
Statistics Canada
“1996 Community Profile – Windsor”
Statistics Canada
“Spring 2000 Census data”
Statistics Canada
“2001 Community Profile – Windsor”
Windsor-Essex County Food Security Steering Committee. (1997).
“Is There Food For All...in Windsor-Essex County?” (Technical Report)
Journal of the National Institute of Health Sciences
"Community Health Profile of Windsor, Ontario, Canada: Anatomy of a Great Lakes Area of Concern"
by Michael Gilbertson and James Brophy, 2001
The City of Baltimore
“Managing for Success: Report by the Greater Baltimore Committee and Presidents' Roundtable - Recommendation Highlights”
The City of Baltimore
“Fiscal 2004 Summary of the Adopted Budget”
The City of Baltimore
“Baltimore City Comprehensive Annual Financial Report - Year Ended June 30,2002”
The City of Baltimore
“FY 2001 Budget Address to Board of Estimates by Mayor Martin O'Malley” (May 10, 2000)
The City of Baltimore
“FY 2002 Budget Speech by Mayor Martin O'Malley” (May 9, 2001)
The City of Baltimore
“State of the City Address by Mayor Martin O'Malley” (February 3, 2003)
and
“Fiscal 2001 Budget Plan Summary”
Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
“Can CitiStat Work in Greater Boston?”
chapter: “Six Simple Rules for Launching CitiStat”