CHAPTER 16 ________________________________
Citistat: Evaluating City Management in Baltimore, Maryland

Performance measurement in local government continues to be an elusive target at the dawn of the 21st century. Issues of efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and transparency continue to be problematic for public administrators. They must work with limited resources and engage citizens, and they are expected to emulate the private sector. Governments at all levels have implemented a variety of performance measurement programs since Clarence Ridley wrote in 1938, “It is not enough to be honest, but governments must be efficient as well.” Today, as public administrators continue their quest toward improving local government, “stat” performance measurement systems are sweeping the nation. Known originally as Compstat, this unique performance measurement method combines specific management techniques with technology in an effort to improve local government performance.

Compstat

Compstat originated with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in 1994 under the leadership of police commissioner William J. Bratton. Compstat was not a pre-packaged system adapted from the private sector, but rather the culmination of Bratton’s efforts to reduce crime, enhance agency performance, and improve data collection. The name Compstat comes from the computer file name given to the first set of comparative crime statistics used to evaluate the New York City crime problem.¹

According to Moore,² Compstat is a strategic management system combined with administrative and technical innovations. Compstat is further described as a new paradigm in police management and one of the most important innovations in policing for the last decade.³ In 1996, Compstat was awarded the Innovations in American Government Award from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Citistat

While meeting with Jack Maple of the NYPD about Compstat, Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley realized that the system could be used to manage an entire city.⁴ Following his election in 2000, O’Malley began using a system dubbed Citistat to manage a few departments. According to Behn,⁵ “Citistat is Compstat applied to an entire city.” Today, current Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon continues to use Citistat to manage Baltimore, and government officials from across the country frequently visit to learn more about it.

During its first year of operation, Citistat is credited with saving the city $13.2 million and by 2007 had accumulated $350 million in total savings.⁶ In addition, Baltimore was also able to reduce absenteeism and overtime. By combining Citistat with a centralized 311 nonemergency request line, Baltimore was also able to serve its citizens better. In 2004, Citistat was recognized with the Innovations in American Government Award from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. This chapter discusses Citistat’s historical origins, structural composition, and theoretical orientation.

Historical Origins

Upon his election, Mayor Martin O’Malley inherited a city with many problems. Baltimore suffered from fiscal distress, high crime rates, and disenfranchised employees.⁷ Citistat allowed O’Malley to stay in frequent contact with department directors and prioritize the work of each department. To accomplish this, O’Malley first established performance targets for each department and next began to implement a service culture that put the citizen first.⁸

The NYPD tried to improve quality of life by focusing on minor problems—”broken windows”—but O’Malley took a much more direct approach. He established a 311 non-emergency request line, which helped him learn exactly what the citizens wanted, and he focused city departments directly on those needs. O’Malley became famous for his guarantee that requests to fill potholes would be accomplished within 48 hours.

Mission clarification, or in Baltimore’s case, establishing specific target objectives, is a key goal for agencies using Compstat. Furthermore, department directors are required to have an intimate knowledge of departmental workings and some plan for achieving these required target objectives.

To O’Malley, accomplishing specific targets with a focus on a service culture were compatible goals that could be accomplished through Citistat.⁹ However, there is much more to Citistat than setting a performance target and waiting for citizens to phone in requests. Although each city using Citistat customizes it, it has specific structural components that will increase the probability of its success.

Structural Composition

Citistat cities are identifiable because, using data, they conduct frequent meetings to discuss past performance, future objectives, and performance strategies to accomplish those objectives.¹⁰ This definition may categorize Citistat cities, but it does not identify or explain the necessary underlying structural components needed to make Citistat a successful performance management strategy. In an earlier article,¹¹ Behn identified six core drivers of Citistat:

• The active engagement of the city’s top executives

• The timeliness and scope of the data as well as its analysis

• The perseverance of the questioning, feedback, and follow-up

• The consequences for good, poor, and improved performance

• A focus on problem-solving, continuous experimentation, and learning

• The institutional memory of the city’s top executives.

Together, these components provide a blueprint for city leaders to follow. They are reinforced at the frequent meetings synonymous with Citistat. Behn¹² admits that even he is not sure which of the drivers are most important, but he believes that collectively they have great power.

Active Engagement of Top Executives

The active engagement of the city’s top executives has two components. First, Behn¹³ suggests that city leaders must be committed and show this commitment by investing their personal time. Without a positive commitment to success, department directors may dismiss Citistat as a recent fad that is sure to be short-lived. Second, city leaders must set a direction. In Baltimore, O’Malley set specific performance targets. For Compstat, it was the clear mission to reduce crime. For Citistat to be successful, department directors must have a direction to follow and a specific goal to achieve. By establishing specific performance targets, O’Malley gave department directors personal responsibility for achieving them.¹⁴

Timeliness and Scope of Data

The timeliness and scope of data collected are essential to the operation of any organization; cities are no different. The data must be both timely and relevant.¹⁵ In Baltimore, a Citistat analyst from the mayor’s office thoroughly reviews the data, and Citistat meetings are frequent and consistent. Department directors make presentations to the mayor on a set biweekly schedule and often conduct their own “agency stat”¹⁶ by meeting before presenting in an effort to identify areas of concern. Data for Citistat discussions can be drawn from any number of sources, including departmental records, 311 service requests, or an independent Citistat investigator assigned to the mayor’s office. The most important function of the data is to spark discussion about a department’s performance and help decisionmakers choose managerial strategies.¹⁷

Perseverance of Questioning, Feedback, and Follow-Up

In Baltimore, unlike at most city departmental performance meetings, the department director does not control the agenda—the mayor does.¹⁸ And the agenda, which consists of questioning, feedback, and follow-up, is dependent on the data and performance of a department. Citistat was specifically designed not to be just a presentation of data. Instead, it is a two-way discussion of data and performance.¹⁹ This discussion takes place between city leaders and department directors. Important to the success of Citistat is the expectation that questions be specific, the feedback intelligently informed, and unanswered issues positively resolved. The meetings must have a purpose and must be beneficial.²⁰

Consequences for Good, Poor, and Improved Performance

The consequences for good, poor, and improved performance underscore the emphasis on accountability. In Baltimore, Citistat identified poorly performing department directors, who were eventually replaced. However, the fear of job loss is not the only motivating factor. More important, there is always another Citistat presentation due within two weeks. The need to answer questions regarding department performance is a consequence in itself.²¹ That the meetings are attended by peers, superiors, and subordinates adds stress to the situation.

Focus on Problem Solving, Continuous Experimentation, and Learning

Citistat provides an ideal forum for organizational learning because it frequently brings together city leaders and department directors for the sole purpose of discussing organizational performance. At Citistat meetings, there should be a focus on problem-solving, continuous experimentation, and learning. According to Behn,²² city leaders and department directors are all responsible for improving performance. Citistat facilitates two-way discussion. Behn²³ describes the meeting process as “less hierarchal, more collegial than the conspicuous layout of the room or the obvious direction of the questioning might suggest.”

Institutional Memory of Top Executives

Finally, institutional memory reinforces the previous five core components. Without frequent meetings between city leaders and department directors, it becomes difficult to recognize when a department has actually improved its performance.²⁴ These meetings not only reinforce expectations and ensure accountability, but also build trust. This trust can further motivate individuals and the organization to accomplish more.

Theoretical Orientation

While the structural components of Citistat provide a framework for cities to follow, they do not identify the system’s underlying values. It is important for city leaders to understand these values as they embark on implementing Citistat. The system does present a challenge to contemporary public management thinking in its emphasis on and expression of the values of accountability, efficiency, and transparency. Similar to Compstat, Citistat promotes accountability and transparency, but it subtly replaces Compstat’s focus on effectiveness with efficiency.

Accountability

Accountability for Citistat is assigned to department directors, who report to the mayor on a biweekly basis in a public forum to discuss the performance of their departments. The questioning of these directors sets the tone and helps to establish personal responsibility.²⁵ According to Behn,²⁶ “Citistat is a confrontational, accountability-holding process.” One of Baltimore’s unique features is the strength of the mayoral position. Through Citistat, the strong mayor is afforded a powerful system to exercise control over the bureaucracy and implement his or her agenda.²⁷

Transparency

Transparency is another feature replicated from Compstat. Baltimore’s Citistat meetings are conducted in a public forum with peers, superiors, and subordinates present. The meetings typically involve the city’s management team, though guests from other city government elements are often present. In addition, reports submitted by departments for the purpose of review and evaluation are posted on a public website maintained by the city. The transparency of Citistat motivates department directors to achieve performance targets.²⁸

Efficiency

Efficiency was implicitly expressed in O’Malley’s performance targets. It is evident that O’Malley believed the Baltimore bureaucracy was unresponsive and underperforming.²⁹ Therefore, he established performance targets in Baltimore with the intention of accomplishing more outputs.³⁰ Service requests were O’Malley’s bottom line.³¹ This stands in contrast to Bratton’s efforts with the NYPD to focus more on a particular outcome, reducing crime. For O’Malley and the citizens of Baltimore, outputs were the outcomes. According to Behn,³² “A city government delivers concrete services. Thus, citizens perceive improved outputs to be improved outcomes.” O’Malley’s outcome was citizen satisfaction with a responsive and productive city. He was concerned more with results than with quality.³³

Baltimore, beyond producing more outputs and responding to citizen nonemergency requests, should define desired socially desirable outcomes and decide which outputs will have the greatest impact on achieving them. Citizen satisfaction is surely one type of outcome, especially if you are interested in reelection. But it is not the only outcome.

Conclusion

Citistat is a unique system for managing an entire city government. Using this system, former Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley did an exceptional job of gaining control of the city’s bureaucracy and focusing city government on increasing productivity and accepting a service-oriented culture that put citizens first. It appears Citistat was successful because O’Malley established clear performance targets and provided leadership by committing his time to the effort.

In Baltimore, Citistat promoted three primary values: accountability, efficiency, and transparency. The true outcome was citizen satisfaction. There are currently no studies to determine if residents of Baltimore are better off after Citistat, but it appears that they are satisfied. O’Malley, now the elected governor of the state of Maryland, has since embarked on a journey to apply Citistat to state government.

Notes

1. Eli B. Silverman, NYPD Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999).

2. Mark H. Moore, “Sizing Up Compstat: An Important Administrative Innovation in Policing.” Criminology and Public Policy 2 (2003): 469.

3. Vincent E. Henry, The Compstat Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business, and the Public Sector (Flushing, NY: Looseleaf Law Publications, 2003); See note 1.

4. Robert D. Behn, “The Varieties of Citistat,” Public Administration Review 66 (2006): 332; Teresita Perez and Reece Rushing, “The Citistat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can Increase Efficiency and Effectiveness,” Center for American Progress (2007).

5. Robert D. Behn, “The Core Drivers of Citistat: It’s Not Just About the Meetings and the Maps,” International Public Management Journal 8 (2005): 295.

6. Teresita Perez and Reece Rushing, “The Citistat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can Increase Efficiency and Effectiveness,” Center for American Progress (2007).

7. Ibid.

8. Robert D. Behn, “The Theory Behind Baltimore’s Citistat,” (paper presented at the 28th Annual Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, Madison, Wisconsin, 2006.

9. Ibid.

10. Robert D. Behn, “The Varieties of Citistat,” Public Administration Review 66 (2006): 332.

11. See note 5.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. See note 8.

15. See note 5.

16. Ibid.

17. See note 6; see note 8.

18. Robert D. Behn, “What All Mayors Would Like to Know about Baltimore’s Citistat Performance Strategy,” IBM Center for the Business of Government, 2007.

19. Lance deHaven-Smith and Kenneth C. Jenne, II, “Management by Inquiry: A Discursive Accountability System for Large Organizations,” Public Administration Review 66 (2006): 64.

20. See note 10.

21. See note 5.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. See note 19; see note 8.

26. See note 5.

27. See note 18.

28. Ibid.

29. See note 6; see note 18.

30. See note 18.

31. See note 5.

32. See note 8.

33. See note 18.