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Model City Charter Revision Project - Eighth Edition

Option Memo

Issue: Performance Measurement

Seventh Edition: There is no reference to performance measurement in the Seventh Edition. Performance measurement would be a new topic in the Eighth Edition.

Rationale: Model City Charter Revision Committee members at the first meeting introduced performance measurement as a topic for potential inclusion in the Eighth Edition. The practice of performance measurement is an accepted and advanced management tool that helps ensure accountability of local government both internally across departments and externally with constituents. Encouraging the employment of performance measurement in local government ensures that the Eighth Edition of the Model City Charter is inclusive of cutting edge practices.

Proposal: Performance measurement is a specific and specialized tool that may take different forms and approaches depending on the unique factors of each community and local government. Articulating specific requirements could limit the community's and local government's ability to develop a system that fits their specific needs.

Therefore, we propose introducing a new section in Article IV, entitled "Performance Measurement" that incorporates language that could be phrased as follows:

Performance Measurement

The City is encouraged to develop and implement a performance
measurement system as a management and accountability tool, where citizens, council, and management undertake it subject to the year-to-year needs and demands of the community.

The commentary for the new section would describe the rationale for performance measurement. In the Appendix, references for the topic would be listed along with various factors to be considered when developing and maintaining a performance measurement project. Included in these factors would be the roles of citizens, uses of performance measurement, and ways to disseminate the performance measurement information to the community.

Two Options: The Committee should adopt one of the following positions by the end of the June 12-13 meeting:

  1. The Model should include language re: Performance Measurement in Article IV, Article IV commentary, and in the Appendix.
  2. The Model should not include language re: Performance Measurement.

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