Grading the Cities introduction THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT Report Card: Anchorage Revenue Rank: 26 Form of Government: Mayor-Council Mayor: Rick Mystrom (took office 1994) City Assembly: 11 members, elected by district FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: C+ Anchorage’s budget is under severe pressure from state revenue cuts, but officials have been hard at work on contingency plans for dealing with future shortfalls. Things can only improve. The budgeting process here last year may have been the most acrimonious in any of the nation’s large cities. Mayor Mystrom proposed a $256 million budget. When the City Assembly added $1.3 million, mostly to hire more fire fighters and restore a few bus routes, the mayor vetoed that budget, and the Assembly was unable to override the veto. As of December, it was unclear whether the city had any valid fiscal document at all, and the only realistic solution appeared to involve court action. When it is not engaged in a fight to the death over budget numbers, Anchorage runs a fairly conventional finance operation. It follows a stringent investment policy, with reasonable reporting and oversight. It has good financial reports and prints 1,000 copies of a “Budget in Brief” to distribute around the city. The fire and police retirement fund has been overstocked. There also is no official rainy day fund, but officials point to $118 million cleared from the sale of the local telephone utility that has been placed in a reserve fund. Only the interest can be spent, but it could conceivably be accessed if citizens voted to do so. HUMAN RESOURCES: C Relations between Anchorage and its labor force can be chilly. The city only recently resolved a long-standing tussle with police and fire fighters over payments to their pension plan, and there’s been a battle over the mayor’s effort to change police shifts from a four-day, 10-hour workweek to five days, eight hours. Union officials say the move violates their labor contract, and in 1998 an independent arbitrator agreed. The city is appealing the penalties. There is no formal work force planning in Anchorage, and recruitment is done mostly for vacant positions as they come up. Departments are asked to hire from a list of candidates. But if none of the names fit the bill, departments may ask for more names, and a new list can be generated. The city does cast a wide net when it hires. It targets law enforcement personnel in states with similar climates and advertises on Internet employment sites. Job seekers can download an application that they can fax, mail or bring in. Applications have been mailed in from all over the country. The city experimented with accepting online applications but then dropped the effort. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: C Anchorage is the only one of the 35 top revenue-ranking cities that doesn’t use master contracts for procuring PCs. The main reason is the city’s municipal code, which makes such a step difficult to implement. “If a department wants 10 PCs, it’s going to take at least a month if everything goes smoothly,” says David Rudisill, the director of management information systems, “or three months if it doesn’t.” The city has an enterprise-wide strategic IT plan , but as Rudisill admits, “It is hopelessly obsolete.” Departments are supposed to do their own strategic planning, but Rudisill explains that the city “stopped requiring it, so they stopped doing it. It makes our planning very difficult.” On the positive side, Anchorage’s technology is well standardized. Investments have been made in new financial management and human resources information systems, parts of which are already in place. This spring, Anchorage will be saying goodbye to its old legacy budgeting system. CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: B- The planning process here involves much citizen participation and has been steadily improving. All projects in the Capital Improvement Plan include targeted sources of funding, mostly voter-approved general obligation bonds. The bond proposition for 1999, $49.5 million, was approved in full by voters. The city is updating its 20-year comprehensive capital plan, which focuses on land use and infrastructure growth to create an identity for Anchorage as a “sub-Arctic” city. Departments are responsible for monitoring and evaluating their own projects through completion, and given this decentralized system, efficiency varies. Assembly members complain that the administration comes back too often for extra funding, and that, as the Assembly’s budget analyst says, “overall, projects are not completed on time.” Maintenance is less of an issue here than in other cities. “We are a newer city,” says budget director Gene Dusek. “We don’t have the same building and street problems yet.” The city appears to do a pretty good job at maintaining its streets; building maintenance could use more funds. MANAGING FOR RESULTS: C- Anchorage is just starting to experiment with performance measures. The police and fire departments, for example, have been asked to indicate average response time, with goals for improvement. This information is supposed to be used in the budget process, but so far, it has largely been ignored. “Nobody knows the accuracy of the information,” Dusek says, “and nobody seeks to check the accuracy.” Strategic planning is done as part of a “Six Year Fiscal Plan,” mandated by the municipal charter. The plan lays out broad citywide goals, listed in the mayor’s message as “major elements which will further assist in building a stronger community.” These goals are similar to ones highlighted in the city’s budget. AVERAGE GRADE: C Copyright © 2000, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc.