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Lessons to be Learned: Municipal Performance Reporting in Ontario

Lessons to be Learned: Municipal Performance Reporting in Ontario. By Alicia Schatteman, Doctoral Candidate School of Public Affairs and Administration Presented November 3, 2007 PPMRN Conference Newark, New Jersey. Ontario, Canada.

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Lessons to be Learned: Municipal Performance Reporting in Ontario

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  1. Lessons to be Learned: Municipal Performance Reporting in Ontario By Alicia Schatteman, Doctoral Candidate School of Public Affairs and Administration Presented November 3, 2007 PPMRN Conference Newark, New Jersey

  2. Ontario, Canada • Population 12.7 million out of 32 million people (38.9%) in all of Canada (largest province by population and second to Quebec in area) • Capital of Ontario is Toronto, which is Canada’s largest city (5.3 million); and the capital of Canada, Ottawa, is also located in Ontario

  3. Municipal Landscape of Ontario 445 municipalities 77.5% of all municipalities have less than 20,000 residents

  4. Types of Municipal Government Reform • Changes to structure of local governments (amalgamation, consolidation, annexation) • Change in the relationship to other governments • Privatization of municipal government programs and services • Local government cost sharing for provision of government programs and services (shared services) • Regional tax-sharing

  5. How did they do it in Ontario? • 1997: Local Services Realignment • 1995-2000: Consolidation of local municipalities (nearly in half) • 2000: Ontario Municipal Performance Measurement Program (MPMP) in 2000. • 2007: updated Municipal Act of Ontario

  6. “Ajax Mayor Steve Parish says the whole exercise [of performance measurement] is a waste of staff’s time and serves no useful purpose. Since the program started in 1999, he says he has never received a call from a resident regarding the published information” Mike Ruta Durham Region Regional News September 13, 2005

  7. MPMP in Ontario, Canada • The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing implemented the Ontario Municipal Performance Measures Program in 2000, the first of its kind in North America. • The goals were to improve delivery of municipal services, strengthen accountability to citizens and enhance the capacity of municipalities to improve and benchmark performance.

  8. Data collection began with 40 different measures in 10 service areas in 2001 For 2006, 54 measures in 12 service areas Component #1: MPMP, data collection

  9. Data submitted electronically to the Province via Financial Information Return [FIR] MPMP: Data Analysis

  10. Reporting Requirements • The municipalities began reporting in 2001. Data collection began with 40 different measures in 10 service areas in 2001. For 2006, there are 54 measures in 12 service areas • Must report to citizens by September of the following year (or 9 months after the end of the fiscal year).

  11. Municipalities must publish the name of each performance measurement, and the result generated by the electronic financial information return software. • They must publish this information through at least one of the following four methods: a direct mailing to taxpayers or households, an insert with a property tax bill; an ad in local newspapers or advertising periodicals; or post the information on the Internet.

  12. Positives of MPMP Negatives of MPMP • Standardization of measures • Management Integration • System evolution • Ability to customize • Use of technology • No or Low citizen awareness • Time lag • Weak reporting requirements • Burden for small municipalities • Focus on efficiency and effectiveness and not on outcomes/ benefits

  13. Research Questions • How are small and medium-sized cities using and reporting their performance measurement results in Ontario? • Secondly, how do they perceive the performance measurement system in terms of its results and impact on decision-making?

  14. Method • Online survey developed consisting of 14 questions • General questions about size of municipality, position of respondent, years on job, operating budget • Specific questions about PM results • Identified cities between 20,000 and 500,000 (single or lower tier only) • Email sent to the chief operating officer or city manager for these cities, with a link to the survey on March 13. • By March 28, after one additional reminder, I had 23 respondents (45% response rate). • Email sent to those who indicated they would like to see summary results on April 24.

  15. Results: General Questions • Most of the cities had populations between 20K and 200K (78.2%) with an average operating budget of $155 million. • Respondent information: nearly half of respondents were the chief administrative officer (52.4%), followed by the department chair (23.8%), the chief financial officer (19%), the town/city manager (9.5%) and one elected official

  16. Average of 7.5 years in the job • The chief financial officer most responsible for the MPMP program (61.9%), followed by other (14.3%), chief administrative officer (9.5%), town/city manager (9.5%) and department chair (4.8%)

  17. Results: Satisfaction with Program • Reporting to the province was either satisfactory or very good (65%)

  18. Citizens: most respondents (52%) rated reporting to citizens as “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory” • Usefulness for Staff decision-making: 60% felt the system needs improvement or was unsatisfactory • Usefulness for elected officials’ decision-making: 65% felt the system needs improvement or was unsatisfactory • PM measures: most felt the measures themselves needed improvement or were unsatisfactory (71%)

  19. Results: PM Reports and Accountability • Internally: Primary audience for the results internally were indicated to be chief administrative officer (74%) and department heads (66.7%), city council members (52.4%), mayor or professional staff in the mayor’s office (42.9%), budget officials/personnel officials/other professional staff (23.8%)

  20. Externally, provincial or federal agencies (61.9%), citizens (42.9%), and the media (33.3%) • Accountability to citizens as a result of the performance measurement program: 47.8% yes, 39.1% no (pretty much a split) and 13% did not know • Use of results by elected officials: A little over half of respondents perceive that elected officials use the results (57%)

  21. Results: Report Methods • Of the reporting municipalities, they chose the Internet (95%), ad (21%), insert into property tax bill (5%) and no one reported conducting a direct mail of the report

  22. Results: Report Contents • comparison to previous year results (95%) • table of contents (58%) • explanatory notes (47%) • images and graphs (32%) • comparisons to other municipalities (26.3%) • targets or goals (16%) • opportunities for feedback (10%)

  23. Conclusions and Recommendations Because program began as a mandated top-down program, first priority is fulfilling the legal requirements of collection and reporting results, second is the usefulness to upper management, third is the usefulness to elected officials and last is usefulness to citizens.

  24. How they report (almost exclusively online) proves that the municipalities are taking the cheapest and fastest method despite that these reports can be buried online and again gets back to the usefulness for people outside the organization • Province launched MIDAS online reporting tool to assist municipalities, free, can customize reports with previous years and comparisons to other municipalities.

  25. More Questions??? Future Research • Given the same minimum legal requirements of performance reporting in Ontario, why are some cities going beyond this? In effect, what makes a community go from okay, to good, to great in terms of performance reporting? • What do citizens want municipal government to report, what information do they use to assess government performance, what method of reporting do they prefer and how often do they want performance information?

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