Revenue Rank: 19
Form of Government: Council-Manager
Mayor: Kirk Watson (took office 1997)
City Manager: Jesus Garza (appointed 1994)
City Council: 6 members, elected at large
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: A
Austin does an excellent job at making sure that it doesn’t eat chicken one day and feathers the next. It ties short-term budgeting to well-developed long-range prognostications. So, “if we had a 5 percent increase in revenue next year, but were projecting a downturn, we’d budget accordingly,” says Charles Curry, the city’s budget officer. Projections force Austin to confront inevitable future expenses, such as staffing costs associated with new facilities.
This is particularly important in a city with such a booming economy. One small weakness, however, is its tendency to underestimate income from sales tax. In an effort to be more aggressive, its fiscal year 2000 estimate of sales-tax revenue growth is 9.2 percent. “That scares the hell out of me,” says Curry.
Austin’s debt policies are strong; it has double-A ratings from both Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, while Fitch recently raised its bond rating to AA+. The city’s general employee pension is more than adequately funded.
HUMAN RESOURCES: A-
Texas’ capital city uses copious data to do long-range planning for work force needs. Every department forecasts two to five years ahead how its workload is likely to change and what that means for staffing decisions.
Most of the city’s hiring is done at the department level. On average, excluding police and fire personnel, it takes about 78 days to fill jobs. This is on the slow side. On the other hand, Austin is one of just a handful of cities that can actually say how long the process takes. Most others know only the length of time it takes the central personnel office to put together a list of candidates for the different departments.
The city focuses on keeping its staff happy. In a 1999 employee survey, 81 percent said they were satisfied with their jobs, up from 74 percent in 1997. Promotions are not rule-bound, and performance counseling usually precedes any kind of disciplinary measure. “We want employees to stay in the organization. That’s our goal,” says the human resources director.
Austin is well above average in training efforts. A “skills at work” course was developed after a citywide training-needs assessment identified gaps in training available to employees.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: B
Austin is committed to a thorough decentralization of its IT management. While there are clear benefits to giving departments a fair amount of control, there are some concerns that the result will be small and costly systems with lots of shiny bells and whistles. Meanwhile, its citywide systems are clearly strong and only getting better.
The city’s strategic IT plan is now seven years old, but it was sufficiently far-reaching that it continues to guide many of the city’s efforts. A technology committee, formed with managers from large departments, ensures that thought is given to the future, even if a new written plan hasn’t emerged.
Austin’s Web site doesn’t currently support many citizen transactions, but the city is clearing up the security-related obstacles to that kind of use. When the process is finished, people will be able to pay parking tickets on the Internet, and vendors will be able to register to do business with the city.
CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: A-
As might be anticipated in a city that makes long-range forecasting an integral part of everything it does, Austin’s capital management planning is exemplary. The Capital Improvements document is one of the best in the country, with clear links between the operating and capital budgets.
And although the city had difficulties a few years ago in project management, it now seems to be getting more projects done on time, thanks in part to a special oversight committee set up in response to difficulties in this area. The performance evaluations of several department heads are now based on whether capital projects in the overall plan are finished on time and on budget.
Austin could still use some work on building maintenance. Condition assessments are decentralized to the agencies, and according to the city’s budget officer, “this is the piece where our information is the weakest.”
MANAGING FOR RESULTS: A-
For years, Austin has been a national leader in developing performance measures, and it would have been simple to luxuriate in that reputation. But city officials were taken aback not long ago when they surveyed employees on their use of the measures and found that one-third weren’t making use of them at all in their daily work. “Either the information we were collecting wasn’t relevant, or employees didn’t understand how it was relevant,” says the budget officer.
So Austin has embarked on a major effort to get managers to make the link between what they’re trying to accomplish and the measures they’re using. The city has not yet polled employees again to see what the results of this initiative have been on government performance.
Austin has no citywide strategic plan or citywide goals, although many departments have developed their own five-year plans, and have received training in the process. Citywide, Austin has a broad vision — to become “the most livable community in the country.” This vision is supposed to be reflected in council priorities, a five-year financial forecast, departmental business plans, quarterly performance reports and a performance budget. A Community Scorecard reports progress on benchmarks and compares Austin to other cities.
AVERAGE GRADE: A-
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