History of FBC's Citizen-informed performance measurement project

In August 2007, the Florida Benchmarking Consortium FBC received a Sloan Foundation grant to facilitate citizen participation in performance measurement, called “Citizen-Informed Performance Measures for Florida Local Governments”. This award provided $45,000 over the course of eighteen months to address citizen participation in performance measurement. The project consisted of a three-pronged strategy for the development and incorporation of citizen-informed outcome measures into the FBC performance measurement process: 1) Facilitation of Citizen Meetings; 2) Inclusion of Citizens on FBC Service Category Committees; and 3) Enhancement of FBC Website for Citizen-Government Collaboration.

The UCF Center for Community Partnerships and the John Scott Dailey Florida Institute of Government staff, in collaboration with the FBC, facilitated five focus groups that were held throughout Florida during the months of February and March 2008. One hundred and four citizens participated in the focus groups. The focus group discussions were facilitated using the following service categories as content area guides for group input: Police, Fire and Rescue, Planning/Growth Management, Code Enforcement, Parks and Recreation, Road Repair, Water/Waste Water, and Storm Water/Drainage. A full report was issued detailing the focus group process that includes results and recommendations from the group discussions.

An executive summary report was issued providing a synopsis of the most important findings from the focus groups, by service category and across service categories. Additionally, the report contains recommendations to the Florida Benchmarking Consortium which focus on strategy and implementation.