Oberlin City Manager Report from #ICMA Conference Day 3

Bonjour Oberlin: Yesterday's sessions at the ICMA Conference began with Alice Rivlin addressing City Managers about the economy. She told us one reason the current recession in the US won't turn into another great depression is that many reforms were put into place after the Great Depression. These include Social Security, unemployment insurance and the deposit insurance program. The big hole in the current recession is health care. She advocates adopting universal healthcare now, not to help in the current recession, but to protect Americans in the next recession. As the conference is taking place in Canada, she noted that for the most part Canada weathered the financial crisis better than the US because of its healthcare system.

Ms. Rivlin went on to say that Americans are saving more now. This is good overall, but it will take the economy more time to recover as those dollars are being spent. She also noted that inflation is not a concern during the recovery, but future deficits are a concern.

Next I attended a session on performance measurement. Examples of communities doing it right are Coral Springs, FL (Baldridge Award winner) and Kitchener, ON. Key excellence indicators for a Baldridge award winner:

• Fact-based decision making
• Collection of actionable data
• Consistent use of multipurpose aligned and interlinking measures
• Wide deployment and accessibility of data and information

Collecting performance data should be part of the daily work of the organization. Why bother? The data reveals the values of the organization, motivates behaviour, and identifies ways to learn.

Another session focused on resource sharing amongst local governments. Such sharing can range from mutual aid to full consolidation ... and everything in between. Often the impetus is greater efficiency and effectiveness. Key success factors from one study include:

• Equitable distribution of benefits and costs
• Clear purpose
• History of trust and cooperation between staff in participating organizations and at the political level.

Well, I am off to a 7:15 breakfast meeting. More later!