Performance Measurement in the Public Sector, Van Dooren, Wouter; Bouckaert, Geert; and Halligan, John

Performance Measurement and the real world must meet just as the economic man and the satisficing man must meet. The discussion starts with setting the goal of identifying performance measurement, performance information and performance management as parts of the same process. The author believes that you must be able to identify each, understand why you feel it will benefit the organization and who your audience will be when presenting the information.
The author states that the information will not be used by the organization if just specific individuals believe that the information has value. There is still reasonable resistance to performance management because it measures the past and fails to adjust to changing conditions.
The key is in understanding how the information is used. Each category must include flexibility in the use of the information. The author states that the soft uses related to learning are the most flexible, steering and controlling has moderate flexibility and giving account has the least flexibility.
The book helps focus on the value of the information, the uses and the expected results. It ends with the idea that management needs to be able to react to changing conditions and that rigid performance numbers can lead to serious problems. They use the example of Wall Street when the market stop reacting the way the models said it would.

Stony/Plainview

The purpose of this motion is to award a contract for street reconstruction. The Work includes 1,545 linear feet of concrete storm sewer and appurtenances; 2,720 linear feet of concrete, curb, and gutter; 11,100 square feet of concrete sidewalk; 5,070 square yards of new asphalt pavement and base course; and 5,200 square yards of seed restoration.
The City of Lake Mills received sealed bids for the 2012 Street Reconstruction Project at 1 P.M., local time, March 29, 2012 at City Hall,
The Council is being asked to award the bid to R&K & Sons Construction, LLC., 7030 Tolles Road, Evansville, WI 53536 for Contract 1-2012, Stony Road / Plainview Terrace Roadway and Utility Reconstruction in the amount of $346,792.00.
The motion awards the contract to R&K & Sons Construction, LLC., 7030 Tolles Road, Evansville, WI 53536.

What To Look for

Alone in a crowd can have several meanings, for me – it is the result of maintaining personal distance. The reasons are sound, becoming too friendly with subordinates leads to favoritism, too friendly with council members results in unequal information distribution, to friendly with vendors leads to purchasing issues, contractors and bid awards, etc. In a small city, the practice may be consider aloofness, worse is arrogance.
The Rotary Club expects you to ask city vendors and contractors to make donations and press employees to buy raffle tickets. All now expect a favor in return. A business makes a large investment in the city and expects certain codes, regulations and inspections to be reviewed favorably. Council members are willing to use special information to distinguish themselves from other members. Even members of your church will expect special consideration during special assessments or condition use actions.
Ultimately the criticism begins to weigh heavy on your soul, they don’t really want to know you – they want to use you. Finding the person that can be your friend and appreciate your job in a small city is a special gift.

Today's Thought

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
— Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and president (1858-1919)

'Policy-based Evidence'

I have a growing concern that our efforts to promote evidence-based policy will sometimes be undermined by those seeking 'policy-based evidence' — information that can be used to justify politically-motivated action. The total lack of performance measurement, performance information and performance management in most small local governments doesn’t provide much opportunity for evidence based policy, but generating the information leads to other political issues.
The difficult connection from outputs to outcomes leaves ample opportunity to generate policy based evidence making. This doesn’t mean we should stop doing performance measurement, performance information and performance management, it just means we need to be prepared to use the tools available to us.
We do not have the resources to develop significant social research which uses the methods of scientific enquiry—such as surveys, qualitative research, analysis of administrative and statistical data, case studies and controlled trials—to measure, describe, explain and predict social and economic change.
We will need to develop surrogate or substitute indicators when cost, complexity or timeliness prevent the scientific evaluation of outputs and outcomes from explaining and predicting social and economic change.

Electronic Voting

An electronic voting system improves transparency by recording each member’s vote. Under the system, members of Council vote in favor or against a motion by pressing the appropriate button, and the overhead screen displays how each individual voted. All votes other than procedural motions are recorded, and the meeting minutes show how each member voted.
Previously, votes were only recorded during a roll call. Roll call voting encourages game playing and reduces government transparency.

Game Playing, Really

The bag of tools brought to the table for work here needs to be the ability to think critically, the decision-makers need to pursue well-defined exogenous objectives (they are rational) and take into account their knowledge or expectations of other decision-makers' behavior (they reason strategically).
An agent is rational if and only if they choose the action which yields the highest benefit for them.
An agent is strategic if and only if they account for the other agents in their decision. On the contrary, an agent is naive if and only if they only care about their own actions.

Where Too

Onward and upward.

Think

Listen carefully, instruct thoughtfully and be prepared to learn. Tonight's motto.

Can You Creatively Reframe Differences?

A leader must mold opinion, not let others define it. Who will step up and determine how to lead?

A Bag Of Tools
By: R. L. Sharpe

Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common folks
Like you and me
Are builders of eternity?

To each is given
a book of rules,
A shapeless mass
and a kit of tools;
And each must make
- Ere life is flown -
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.

Tornado Shelter

The purpose this report is to provide information regarding emergency sheltering during weather disasters in the community The City of Lake Mills has no established and approved emergency evacuation shelter when citizens may have a need for emergency shelter within the community. The Lake Mills Area School District has provide shelter at the Middle School in the tunnel. The changes to the Middle School and the elimination of the tunnel area meant that a new shelter needed to be designated. Staff has worked with the LMASD to establish an approved emergency evacuation shelter within the City of Lake Mills.
Emergency management personnel will have a point for coordinating the support needs of citizens that may have a need for emergency shelter within the community. Protective actions for the general population may include sheltering. Many of the residents in the risk area will evacuate to either their private home or a shelter of their own choosing.
The new designated public shelter during severe weather conditions will be located at the Lake Mills Public High School, 615 Catlin Drive. Persons using the public shelter shall enter the building through door #2, located in the lower level, on the north side of the building.
The shelter will only be open during a “Tornado Warning”. As in the past the public shelter will be supervised by members of the fire department.

Residential Property

The following chart shows the assessed value as assigned by the city and the equalized value assigned by the Department of Revenue (DOR). In 2005 the property received an assessed value from the City Assessor of $162,800 and DOR assigned the city an assessment ratio of 1.042 which meant this home had an equalized value of $156,238. The city only reassesses when the assessment ratio moves below .8 and so the city assessed value remained at $162,800 from 2005 to 2010. The city reassessed in 2010 and resulted in a change from $162,800 to $164,000 or an increase on $1,200 over the six (6) year period.
The newspaper article discusses equalized values, not assessed values. The chart shows that the equalized value for this home increased from $156,238 in 2005 to 191,709 in 2008 and then decreased to $167,091 in 2011. The change in value of this home dropped 12.8 percent from 2008 to 2011. Most homes in Lake Mills experienced similar value decreases over the same period.

Trying to Understand Assessed Value?

The property tax rate is a simple calculation of dividing the amount of taxes needed by the total assessed value of all taxable property in the City. The three main components to the property tax are the levy, assessed value, and levy rate.
1. The levy is the total amount collected from the taxpayers by a taxing district.
2. The assessed value and the levy rate are the tools that are used to distribute the property tax burden equally to all taxpayers.
3. Tax Rate = Levy ÷ Total Assessed Value
Step One: Begin with a Budget
The process is similar to how you must budget your paycheck to pay for housing, food and clothing; you need to know where your money is going (expenditures) and how it is coming in (revenues).
First, City departments prepare budget requests that details how much money (revenue) is needed to cover planned expenditures. These requests are submitted to the Finance Department and Mayor for review. The Manage presents his recommended budget to the departments, usually in June. The departments provide their modifications by July. The Executive Budget is than submitted to the Council in September. The Council modifies the budget and a public hearing is held on the Council’s budget, usually on the 1st Tuesday of November.
Step Two: Calculate the "Property Tax Levy"
After determining how much revenue Lake Mills will receive from the state and other non-property tax sources, the difference is made up with property taxes. The property tax levy is the total amount of revenue needed from property taxes to cover General Fund expenditures, debt service costs, and other expenses. As Lake Mills has high property values, the City receives relatively little in state shared revenues according to the state formulas. The total City tax levy for the 2012 budget (including TIF Districts) was $3,714,486.
Step Three: Calculate the Property Tax Rate
To figure out the property tax rate you must know two things: the tax levy (just explained) and the city's total assessed value. Assessed value is the value of all City of Lake Mills properties for tax purposes and is determined by the City Assessor. The City's total assessed value of real and personal property as of January 1, 2011 (assessment date for tax purposes) was approximately $483,024,300.
How to Calculate the Tax Rate
Tax Levy / Assessed Value = Property Tax Rate
So, $3,714,486 / $483,024,300 = .007690.
Tax rates are reported per $1,000 of assessed property value; therefore, the local tax rate for December 2011 tax bills (used to fund 2012 budgets) was $7.69.
Step Four: Calculate Your Tax Bill
To calculate the City of Lake Mills portion of your tax bill, a tax rate of $7.69 means that for every $1,000 of property you own you are taxed $7.69 for city government services. For example, a Lake Mills resident who owns a home assessed at $164,000 paid $1,261 on the December 2011 tax bill (164 x 7.69 = 1,261) for City of
Lake Mills services such as cultural activities, public safety, public works and parks. This amount does not include costs to educate the community's children or provide judicial and human services. Those services are paid from the Lake Mills Area School District and Jefferson County portions of your tax bill.
Your Tax Bill: The Big Picture
Your property tax bill adds together the tax levy of five different taxing jurisdictions. These "taxing jurisdictions" are the City of Lake Mills, Lake Mills Area School District, Jefferson County, Madison Area Technical College, and the State of Wisconsin. Because these taxing jurisdictions cross municipal boundaries - there needs to be a value equalization method.
What is Equalized Value?
Is calculated by dividing the property's total assessed valued by the average assessment ratio. This ratio is applied to all property, including personal property, regardless of type or location of the property. In theory, this should approximate the current market value of the property as of January 1st in the year the assessment was determined. This value estimate is determined by the Department of Revenue (DOR). It is used to apportion tax levies among municipalities and is used in the distribution of shared revenues.
The assumption is that the market value of property changes with each year’s inflation (or deflation). Even though there is a new assessment roll every year, the City Assessors don’t review and revalue the assessments yearly. That means in a year without a revaluation, the assessed value does not reflect the property’s market value.
Because the other four taxing districts depend on the separate assessors from the municipalities in their districts, and because they do revaluations in different years, the values between municipalities will not be comparable.
Why do we care? Remember, the school districts, the county, the vocational schools and special districts like lake rehabilitation districts also collect part of their budgets from the local property tax. These overlying taxing jurisdictions need to collect the levy they need from each of the municipalities they lie within. The municipality’s share of those budgets will be passed on to each property owner. Fairness demands that the Department of Revenue (DOR) compare “apples to apples,” by making sure that we use one consistent standard in estimating the taxable value of each municipality. Then those overlying tax levies can be fairly apportioned to each municipality. That is a primary reason for the Equalized Value.
The fact that both assessed and fair market (equalized) values are shown on property tax bills underscores the fact that Wisconsin has a dual system of property valuation. Individual parcels of property are valued (assessed) by local assessors (except for manufacturing property, which is assessed by the state) while the estimated value of all taxable property in each municipality (Equalized Value) is determined by DOR. The local assessor is concerned with equity between property owners in the municipality, while DOR is concerned with equity between municipalities and counties. This Equalizing procedure assures that school taxes, county taxes, and major state aids are apportioned fairly to the state's 1851 municipalities.
What is the Assessment Ratio?
The relationship between the assessed value and equalized value of all taxable property within a municipality. For example, if the assessed value of all the taxable property in the City is $150,000.00 and the equalized value is $160,000.00 the assessment level would be 93.75%.
State law requires that assessors be within 10% (higher or lower) of the state's equalized value ratio at least once in every 4 year period. The Department of Revenue allows this leeway because appraisal is not an exact science, and to allow for the different standards used by them versus a municipality.
The local 2011 assessment for the City of Lake Mills also had an assessment ratio of less than one. The state assumed that the city was under assessed. The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has provided a pamphlet regarding reassessment. The basic tenet of the document is that the levy and the property assessment must change to lower or raise the individual tax bill.
Assessed Value
The Assessor's primary responsibility is to find the fair market value of your property, so that you and other taxpayers may contribute a fair share of support for the community services you receive.
The four agencies, as well as the city, must levy taxes. The other taxing agencies include the Lake Mills Public Schools, Jefferson County, State of Wisconsin and the Madison Area Technical College. Here again, state laws define the powers of these taxing agencies and the kinds of properties that are exempt from taxes, such as schools, scout camps, and churches. Taxes levied by these other agencies are included in your tax bill with the taxes levied by the City of Lake Mills.
Each year the governing bodies of the various taxing agencies propose budgets for the next year. To finance the expenditures in the budget, they total all expected sources of revenue such as state aids and shared taxes, license fees and tuition. This is subtracted from the estimated expenditures. The remainder, which is the total amount to be collected through property taxes, is called the "tax levy."
The tax rate is calculated by simply dividing the amount of taxes needed (levy) by the total assessed value of all taxable property in the City.
Tax Rate = Levy ÷ Total Assessed Value
Once the rate is set, the assessed value of your property is used to determine your portion of the levy. The tax rate when multiplied by the assessed value of your property equals what you owe in taxes - your tax bill. The tax rate is often expressed in terms of dollars per thousand, or as a "mill rate."
The entire taxation process requires the cooperation of several parts of City government. The Assessor sets the value of residential and commercial property, the Department of Revenue determines the value of manufacturing property, and the Council determines the cost of City services and sets the levy. The levy and assessment are used to establish the tax rate necessary to generate funds for governmental services.

Bob's New Normal

Change is the new normal. The past decade is lost in almost every form. To maintain any level of past performance requires the ability to experiment and be a risk taker. Local government managers don’t survive well in this scenario, but it is going to have to happen to change the way local government is run. Prepare well and update the resume.

EDC Issues

A Small Business Development Loan Fund could be a joint project between the City of Lake Mills and the City’s community banks and/or other organizations. With donations from these sources, a fund could be developed that would grant loans or grants to small businesses for capital purchases and other qualifying start up costs. The fund would assist small businesses in making investments in the City and help them get their small businesses started, providing one additional resource for entrepreneurs who are seeking to begin or upgrade a small business in the City of Lake Mills.
The City should also consider starting a land bank to encourage the economic strengthening of certain neighborhoods. The goal would be to promote economic development, increased property values, reduce blight and increase quality of life. The land bank would reclaim, rehabilitate, and reutilize vacant, foreclosed or other under-utilized properties within specific neighborhood of Lake Mills.

Focus

I have a problem. Our leadership has avoided determining and focusing on a united vision. The Council doesn’t agree on the organization’s mission, vision, goals, and strategies.
They haven’t taken the time to develop strategic alignment because of unfocused communication and leadership. This makes it difficult to feel like the organization is aligned to achieve important goals. This has led to a lack of trust, collaboration, and agreement between the executive team and the legislative team and throughout the organization. Silo thinking and functioning becomes an issue when each area gets to define the vision. Top-performing teams may achieve some goals – but not the most important ones. The executive doesn’t know if it’s achieved important goals and implement its key strategies because the focus is so fragmented.
We need to take time to reach agreement and strategic alignment on our vision, mission, goals, and strategies. The executive team can develop a laser-focus on why and how to meet those goals. A laser-focus allows for clear communicate of the vision and top goals throughout the organization, developing strategic alignment throughout all ranks and among all teams. It becomes much easier to stay focused on the strategic goals and helps keep all teams and employees focused and on track.

Achievement

Are we nothing more than marionettes in a cosmic puppet play? Is the universe entirely determined, either by an impersonal, purposeless fatalism, or by a personal, theistic fatalism? Are humans simply robots, some of whom are sheep, and others goats, because of a predetermined fate?
What makes our situation even more complicated is that either can be used to justify fatalism. If God knows the future and knows who will go to heaven or hell, who will get a disease and who will be in an accident, then really we don’t have any motive to get close to God or pray. He’ll simply do with us as He has already planned, regardless of whether we love Him or hate Him. If life is part of an Godless, impersonal, purposeless system – then there’s even less reason to worry about being good or bad.
Either way makes for problems in seeking a focus and finding a reason to achieve anything.

Watched

I’ve always preferred to watch people rather than listen to them. The reason is simple – their actions are louder than words. Oral communication can have too many variables that allow for misinterpretation. Their actions ultimately reflect in detail what they meant. I used to dislike having long conversations about feelings, emotions and intentions because in the long run it only confused my understanding of the final result. From an early age I found you couldn’t trust what people said, but their actions laid out what you were going to get.
Now, I’m trying to learn how to incorporate perceptions. The record of final results involves conception, motivation and actions that I should be interpreting.