Grading the Cities introduction THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT Report Card: Nashville Revenue Rank: 12 Form of Government: Mayor-Council (city/county consolidation) Mayors: Philip Bredesen (1991-1999); Bill Purcell (took office 1999) Elected Vice-Mayor: Ronnie Steine Metropolitan Council: 40 members (35 elected by district, 5 at large) FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: B Traditionally, Nashville hasn’t projected its revenues and expenditures beyond the next fiscal year. The new mayor, however, has brought in a finance team with an orientation toward long-term planning. The new finance director, David Manning, is a former commissioner of finance for the state of Tennessee. He is trying to extend forward thinking out another four years. Although Nashville’s lack of long-term thinking is nothing to be proud of, the city has prepared carefully for economic downturns. A resolution passed a decade ago requires a general fund balance of at least 5 percent of the subsequent fiscal year budget for the general fund. There is a similar requirement for the school fund. The city council can appropriate money from these pots of cash only with the approval of the mayor. The city’s teacher pension fund is a problem, carrying a liability of $113 million; a couple of other pension plans are also short on cash, although less so. Nashville debt policies are generally conservative, however, and investments well managed, with good risk management and a determination to optimize returns. An outstanding note: Nashville’s budget is one of the most thorough and communicative in any large city. It explains key issues and relevant economic conditions, has a glossary and users’ guide and is very readable. A budget in brief is also published. HUMAN RESOURCES: B “We hit rock bottom 11 years ago,” says John Kennedy, Nashville’s assistant human resources director. “We had no credibility with departments or the city council. We were viewed as nothing but paper shufflers.” Then the city got a new HR director, and antiquated rules started falling like rain. Nashville has largely abandoned the rigid tests it used to rely on for hiring and the cumbersome sequential approval process that used to slow everything down. Resumes and applications are assessed for specific criteria needed to perform specific jobs. Each position is considered individually, rather than by generic job title, so that instead of looking for a “Secretary One” applicant, a department can advertise for its specific need, say, a secretary who knows how to use Excel and can speak Spanish. After the workers are hired, Nashville utilizes many incentives to keep them, including a bonus program and performance-based promotion and raises. Seniority still counts, but only for 20 percent of the final promotion evaluation. The major weakness in Nashville’s HR is a lack of sufficient work force planning. This is due in part to technological deficiencies. Accessing enterprise-wide information in Nashville is a little like opening a locked door with a key made of Silly Putty. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: D+ “We’ve built a huge computer network piece by piece, without much of an idea of what it should look like when finished,” says Richard McKinney, Nashville’s new director of information technology. “If they had it to do over again, they wouldn’t build it the way it is now.” The fact is, although the city has been putting standards into place, Nashville’s computer systems aren’t very good at sharing information internally or externally. When a department requests money for a particular IT system, it rarely has any form of cost-benefit data to support the request. Training for technology specialists is “woeful at best,” McKinney admits. Fortunately, training for end-users is somewhat better. One forward step has been implementation of a new financial management system. It took the city quite a while to implement it, so it’s not the latest technology. But it appears stable and reliable. Nashville is now discussing introduction of a much-needed HR system. CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: C+ Nashville’s consolidated city-county government has a six-year Capital Improvement Program, updated annually. Planning department staff create the document, prioritizing project requests from all departments. Critics argue, however, that the plan isn’t followed closely enough. “The mayor and council,” one critic says, “make promises to constituents that certain projects will get pushed through and insist upon funding — for instance, money for a certain street resurfacing in a rich district — even against the advice of the Planning Commission.” Once projects are under way, the city does better, particularly with those involving bond issues. The planning department tracks them, and sends out notices indicating the percentage of the work remaining to be done. Improved contract documents contain penalties for late completion and bonuses for early completion. Unfortunately, smaller projects overseen by individual departments are not as carefully monitored. MANAGING FOR RESULTS: C- Doing citywide strategic planning for 55 departments, and getting them to use similar performance-measurement tools, is a real challenge in this city/county. Only 10 of the 55 departments report to the mayor. Fifteen report to separately elected officials and the rest to boards or commissions. Actually, Nashville started down the road of managing for results as far back as the 1970s. But the finance director at the time thought it was a waste of money. Staff was pulled off, and the effort died. Since then, no strategic planning has taken place. Some agencies, including the police and health departments, prepare their own master plans, with various degrees of success. Nashville does use performance measures and program objectives in the budgeting process. All 55 departments have developed workload measures. The use of outcome measures is rare, however, and agencies show little interest in them. The measures are used and considered in the formation of the budget and in budget debates on the council. AVERAGE GRADE: C+ Copyright © 2000, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. 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