City leans into metrics to boost services delivery, cut ‘time tax’
GettyImages/Matteo Colombo
With a new dynamic report that provides up-to-date metrics on city agency performance and the creation of a chief efficiency officer position, New York City Mayor Eric Adams aims to improve city services delivery.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced on April 6 the release of the Dynamic Mayor’s Management Report, a digital version of the twice-yearly MMR that will now provide up-to-date metrics on city agency performance. The DMMR will be regularly updated and feature a user-friendly interface that will allow New Yorkers to easily search for relevant data and comparative analysis across previous years.
An executive order issued the same day formally creates the chief efficiency officer position to improve the city’s transparency, performance and accountability as well as the equitable delivery of government services.
In the order, Adams said his administration also wants to replace metrics and strategies that are hard to grasp and are not driving improvement. Instead, “the public should have access to data that accurately and clearly represents City agencies’ program performance goals, which should be compiled in an easily accessible and understandable format,” the order said.
Melanie La Rocca, the newly appointed chief efficiency officer, will be charged with determining the “time tax,” or the minutes and hours New Yorkers waste trying to access government services. The “time tax” disproportionately affects those in the greatest need, deepening inequalities throughout the city, officials said in a press statement.
La Rocca will also reduce regulations and streamline business processes. Besides ensuring the efficiency of new services and increasing customer satisfaction, the efficiency officer will evaluate new spending “through the lens of service performance improvement,” the executive order stated.
Under the order, each agency must name a chief performance officer who will ensure their agency relies on “metrics, performance practices and data analytics to improve efficiency, effectiveness, innovation, work process and employee development.”
Agencies will work with the chief efficiency officer and the Mayor’s Office of Operations to reassess performance goals and metrics to ensure they improve transparency about the city’s performance and quality of life, clearly explain agencies’ service delivery processes and provide the most recent data possible.
A new steering committee will help identify opportunities for process improvement and customer-centered service that will reduce government dysfunction and waste. Agency performance officers will submit annual performance plans to the steering committee, and each year agencies must send the chief efficiency officer recommendations for eliminating inefficient or ineffective reporting requirements that can be replaced with more useful metrics.
“When it comes to city government, we need to put in place real-time systems to inspect what we expect, tracking how well we’re delivering services to New Yorkers and identifying areas we need to improve,” Adams said. “The launch of today’s Dynamic Mayor’s Management Report is a critical step forward in leveraging data to make our government work better for all New Yorkers.”
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