Friends,

Tomorrow night at the city council I am unveiling my plans for performance oriented government.  Since you are kind enough to read this blog, I thought I would give you a heads up.

Performance measures in government have been quite the rage for the past ten or 15 years, ever since the publication of “Reinventing Government.”  The theory is that by establishing performance measures, you challenge government to always improve and get more efficient.

For example, suppose you set as a performance measure that you want 75% of the potholes filled within 48 hours of the time someone calls them in.  (That, or something like it, will be a standard we will adopt.)

At the end of the year, you then measure how you did, and then try to improve and raise the bar.  Maybe your goal for the next year is to fill 90% within 48 hours.  Maybe your goal for the third year is that you have improved roadway maintenance so that the number of pothole calls have dropped.

The possibilities are endless.  In the fire department, your goal might be to respond to every working fire within 4 minutes.  In police, your goal might be to hold neighborhood meetings, or increase patrols in certain areas.  In the clerk’s office, your goal might be to have a 90% customer satisfaction rate on your customer surveys.  In highway, we will set goals that downtown streets will be swept and cleaned every week, and a goal that 300 new trees will be planted. 

Different communities do this in different ways.  In Baltimore, performance measures are in a separate computer program called “Citistat”.  Somerville and Amesbury have set up Citistat programs.

In other cities, like Cambridge, No. Andover and Chelsea, the performance goals are built into the budget of each department. 

In still other cities, like New York, department goals are posted on the web site where the city gives itself an on-line report card every year.  We are still experimenting and it is not clear which model we will eventually follow. 

The budget crisis we are undergoing is a permanent crisis, not a temporary one.  If we are going to get through this, and we will, we have to find ways to constantly improve government efficiency.  The best way to do that is by instituting government performance standards and then constantly upping the bar.

What standards would you like to see?  How can we improve?

Jim Fiorentini

Reading President Bush’s speech today to the Economic Club of  New York, I am struck by how much the political parties have changed over the decades.

 It used to be it was quite easy to tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans and economic issues.  Among other differences, the Democrats were the Party that believed in government intervention to solve people’s problems.   When Franklin Roosevelt ran in the 1930’s, he advocated government action to help what he called the “forgotten man.”

 The Republicans were the party of small government, that is was simply not the job of government to change the course of markets, or intervene to help people.   Herbert Hoover stuck to the small government no interference principle, and succeeded in making the Republicans a minority party for half a century.   Ronald Reagan said that government was not the solution, it was the problem.  Remember that?

You might not know this is the same party when you read Bush’s speech today.  His difference with the Democrats, he said, is not whether we should take action, it was how much, when and where.

Contrast the small government, no intervention thoughts of prior Republicans with what Bush said today:

“Fortunately, we recognized the slowdown early and took action.  And it was decisive action, in the form of policies that will spur growth.  We worked with the Congress.  I know that may sound incongruous to you, but I do congratulate the Speaker and Leader Reid, as well as Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Secretary Paulson, for anticipating a problem and passing a robust package quickly.”

Part of their robust package, as they call it, was to send a rebate check to every American taxpayer in the country. Does anyone recall when George McGovern was laughed off the national stage for proposing a tax rebate check for every American? 

Speaking of Mcgovern, whose reputation is as the most liberal person ever nominated for President, his view of abortion was that the States should be free to regulate abortion, exactly the view today of the most conservative Republicans.  Barry Goldwater’s position in the 1960’s was that abortion should be legal.

So I ask you this question, what does it mean to be a Republican or a Democrat today?

Jim Fiorentini

Recently the State offered to allow us to do more work at the high school– provided we can pony up $1.9 million of city money to do the job.

The money is for a new electrical system at the school, something that is critically needed, new lockers, new floor tiles, and a new access road around the parking lot.   

I have been working proactively with the State Building Assistance Board, the Department of Revenue, our financial advisors, and others, come up with a plan to pay for our portion of the money.  We do not have the cash, so we have to borrow our portion of the money. 

(Borrowing makes sense in this circumstance, this is a long term project, and you want to pay for it with long term dollars.)

Here are some of the questions we have to answer before we can borrow the money: 

• When do we start repayments?
• What is the bond interest rate?
• Will this affect our bond rating?
• Are there ways to do this in a less expensive manner?
• Are all parts of the project necessary?
• How does this project measure up with other project requests in the city?
• Can we do this without a debt exclusion?

 Everything we do has to be done in a fiscally prudent manner. Fixing the high school is important, but restoring our city to fiscal stability is even more important.

I have already indicated that I would like to do this project, and that we are not going to let this opportunity slip by.  We will do all or part of the project.  Now, the hard part– coming up with a means of paying for it and doing it in the most fiscally responsible manner. 

I will have an announcement on this within the next two to three weeks.  

I watched the city council meeting and heard a good deal about the roof at the Tilton School.

I wanted to see for myself, so I spent a good deal of the day at the Tilton School inspecting the roof.  I went with our maintenance people, climbed up on the flat roof that appears to be the source of difficulty, and went into the classrooms.   I am certainly not an expert of roofs, but here is what I saw. 

I saw that during the rainstorm, the vast majority of the school was dry. 

From what I saw, the hallways, entrance ways, library, and offices were all dry.  27 of the 29 classrooms were completely dry.  One classroom, discussed at length at the council meeting, had been leaking but the maintenance staff seemed to have fixed it, at least temporarily. 

One classroom had water leaking in around a window, and one classroom had a bucket in the corner.  The maintenance staff said they expected to fix those problems in a day or so.  Neither of them appeard to be serious, and they certainly did not appear to present any danger to the children or staff. 

We have a maintenance staff, and a city roofing company.   They worked on shoveling snow off the flat roof– and that appeared to alleviate part of the problem.

They still have to check the slate roof.  It is not safe to put workers on slate roofs when it is icy or wet so we have to wait until it is dry to do this. 

As soon as they can do so, they will inspect the slate roof and let me know.  From what we know now, it appears to be a manageable and solve-able problem. 

Together with the other regional Mayors, I went to the Eagle Tribune editorial office recently to plead the case for cities. 

We have been meeting on a regular basis to formulate plans to deal with what we all see as a long term, sustained budget crisis for cities.  We have introduced regional purchasing in an effort to lower costs, and Haverhill will participate this year in regional purchasing for fog line painting and sewer cleaning. 

To read the entire Eagle Tribune story, click here

Monday night, I’ll be meeting with councilors to outline our budget problems, and to give some possible solutions.   

I’ll first outline how this is a State wide problem, not a city one. 

We are fortunate, in a way, that the steps we took earlier to reform health care (saving $1.5 million a year) and improve our tax base, have left us in a position that we can, and we will, manage this problem.

The key is this:  plan, don’t panic.  We have been preparing for months.  I meet with Department heads on a weekly basis-each one of them has an assignment to either enhance revenues or cut expenses. 

Working together, we have made some substantial progress.   Monday night you will see that our $5.8 million deficit is now substantially reduced, but we still have a ways to go.   

Here are some of the ideas I’ll be putting forth on Monday night:

a.  Health care reforms– will save us about $1.5 million, but requires union approvals;

b.  Raise fees, to make certain that the amount of the fee is commensurate with the work being done. 

c.  Sell vacant land which we took for back taxes.  (Not park land and not land we need for other purposes.)

d.  Sell water sewer hookups to other communities

e.  Streamline and cut our government.

Going forward, we are determined to protect public safety and public education, there are the keys to our city.

Stay tuned. Check my web site, http://www.jamesfiorentini.com/ for more details on my plans and please feel free to offer your comments, suggestions and ideas.

Jim Fiorentini