The City of Sandy uses a two-year budget. One of the advantages of this process is that on the "off year" we don't have to spend time number crunching. In the past we have used this time for review of the long-range capital improvement program and for financial forecasting. In the spring of 2000, we are doing an in-depth review of city programs and services.

Why do we provide the services we provide? What is the ultimate goal of the service? How well are we meeting the goal? How does our service compare with that of other cities? What does the program cost, and how have the costs changed over the past several years. What policy issues are involved? These are all questions that the program review explores.

The Sandy Benchmarking System

Benchmarking has been a hot topic in government for the past few years. The State of Oregon has a set of specific, measurable goals that are monitored by the Oregon Progress Board. Other cities have spent large amounts of time and energy on ways to measure the effectiveness of their services, in order to evaluate their services in relations to specific goals, and in comparison with similar cities.

One of the primary challenges in benchmarking systems is the lack of relevant data and statistics. Organizations typically track inputs--dollars spent and staff allocated--and workload--number of residents served, gallons of water treated, etc. Measuring the effectiveness of the service is much more difficult.

For example, the Sandy Library can easily measure the amount of books and other materials that residents check out. But one of the goals of the library is to have a collection that meets peoples' needs. A measure of effectiveness would be "the percent of time that a library patron finds the book that they are looking for, available and on the shelf." But this measure is actually impossible to track without getting into peoples' heads. How do we know what book a patron is looking for? If they walk out with a book, was that the one they wanted, or did they settle for the next best thing? We can approximate this measure with surveys, but this is expensive and time-consuming, and the results are crude at best.

The problem is compounded when we try to compare our measures with those of other cities. Did they really measure exactly the same thing? Did they use exactly the same sampling techniques? Do the data correspond to the same time period? In any case, few cities really go to the expense of measuring effectiveness.

One of the primary benefits of benchmarking is that it forces the organization to focus on things that are truly important. And it forces organizations to express their goals in terms that are specific enough to be measured, even if the actual measurements are difficult or impossible. This observation has led to the creation of the Sandy Benchmarking System.

 The Sandy Benchmarking System achieves 95% of the benefits of full benchmarking at 5% of the cost by doing everything except actually collecting data (if the accuracy of this assertion is questioned, keep in mind that 67% of all statistics are made up on the spot). Under this system, the program's mission is identified, specific and measurable goals are developed, and the effectiveness of the program is measured against the goals based on the best guess of the people most closely involved with the program. In a small city, we learn a lot about the effectiveness of our services by talking to the people who use them.

All charts with the Sandy Benchmarking System (SBS) logo were developed under this program. If any resident of Sandy feels a chart doesn't accurately reflect the effectiveness of a program, we encourage feedback through e-mail.