Transforming the City’s Data Culture, One $123 Million Infusion of Federal Funding at a Time

Transforming the City’s Data Culture, One $123 Million Infusion of Federal Funding at a Time

Listen to Mayor Walsh articulate his vision for the City, and you will hear him describe his goal to transform Syracuse into a more data-driven city. But that process is not something that just happens on its own; it takes work and a data-driven culture needs to be nurtured. When the Federal Government passed the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) to provide funding to state and local governments around the United States in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the City of Syracuse received $123 million and the Mayor saw this as an opportunity to foster and promote better data practices throughout the City.

The process started in July of 2021 when the Mayor established the ARPA governance group to ensure the City would be able to manage and implement the ARPA funding with a data-driven framework. As the City’s data department, API joined with representatives from the Finance, Budget, Communications, and various other City departments for this initial planning process. The Federal Government’s guidelines have become more defined over time, but from the beginning, the reporting standards were much more stringent for metropolitan areas with populations over two-hundred-fifty thousand residents. Although the City was not expected to reach those same standards, ARPA was seen as an opportunity to instill better data practices throughout the City from an early stage.

While many departments throughout the City have developed their own project management approaches and data tracking strategies, one of the motivations for having a centralized group with oversight over the various ARPA projects was the establishment of an organization-wide standard for all departments across the City. Such a standard would promote better organizational efficiency and allow for better cooperation between departments. With this goal in mind, there are several strategies that have been adopted.

A Successful Deployment of the City of Syracuse's Snow Plow Map: What it Does, What We've Learned, and What We Plan to Do

A Successful Deployment of the City of Syracuse's Snow Plow Map: What it Does, What We've Learned, and What We Plan to Do

Syracuse is no stranger to snow – historically we see an average of 124 inches a year and tend to be in the top 5 snowiest big cities in the country (from the Golden Snow Globe Competition). In an effort to share how we operate during a storm, we developed a snowplow map that shows when a street was last plowed.

Our Deputy Chief Innovation & Data Officer, Conor Muldoon, wrote a post outlining what led up to our current snowplow map and the potential impact of it right before we launched the tool in December here.

We have had several snow storms since the launch of the City’s Snow Plow map (ESRI’s Winter Weather Operations tool) the first week of December 2021. We successfully launched the tool to the public with the first large storm in January, tracking the plowed status of streets for three days, and saw around 12,000 hits over the course of the storm to the public viewer. We continue to maintain high engagement during the storms after, seeing consistent views of the tool throughout the storm’s length.

Performance Management at Syracuse, Why and How?

Contemporary forms of government are marked by the rise of indicators, measures, and new metrics to compare, certify, codify and evaluate performance. In many countries, performance measurement has become one of the symbols of the digital transformation of governments. In the U.S., performance management started with the CompStat program in New York City in the 1990s that helped the police department to track crime data to reduce it. This attempt was picked by the Mayor of Baltimore, who expanded the concept to cover other city management challenges in 2000. This program was called CitiStat. Meanwhile, other municipalities, state and county governments, and school districts started to create their Stat programs.

Today, performance management has become an essential part of certain governing organizations. Performance management teams—composed of one to several specialists and data analysts—can be found in budget offices, strategy units, and offices of innovation and accountability. They help various parts of the organization, such as city departments, leverage data to improve internal processes and strategize long and short-term objectives sustainably. Consulting with the organization's leaders, such as senior staff and department heads, and employees, the performance management team establishes metrics that will be used to measure and track performance. The consultation takes place through interviews to understand standard operational procedures, pain points, data practice, and goals. Analyzing this information, the teams communicate performance insights through data visualizations and dashboards and establish a city-wide, cross-departmental performance management program. A performance management team responsibilities can be briefed into the following tasks:

  • Articulation of organization's vision and mission

  • Articulation of organizational and intra-organizational goals through consultation with leaders and employees

  • Identification of Key Performance Indicators (KPI)—aka performance metrics

  • Establishing a reporting system and dissemination of results

  • Identification of success, deficiencies, and areas for improvement in internal processes

New Priority Area: Permitting!

When people think about neighborhood development and economic development, they often think of construction, new buildings, renovations, small businesses, and jobs.  However, they don’t often think about the behind the scenes work that goes into those larger efforts. People spend countless hours planning, working, and developing their projects.  They spend time and money to create something that will not only impact their lives, but the entire community.

DSC00017.JPG

One part of this behind-the-scenes work involves obtaining approval from the City.  This approval often comes in the form of permits. The City of Syracuse issues dozens of different types of permits, and many times individual projects require multiple permits.  To obtain permits, customers currently have to come in person to Central Permit Office to complete paper applications and drop off paper project plans. From there, applicants’ plans are disseminated to several different city departments for approval.  The process can be long and tedious.

About a year ago we established a Performance Management Program. As part of this program, we set goals for how long it should take to approve different types of permit applications.  Unfortunately though, we are oftentimes missing these goals.

  • Residential renovation - 2 weeks

  • Residential new construction - 4 weeks

  • Commercial renovation - 6 weeks

  • Commercial new construction - 8 weeks

Permitting Performance Management Dashboard from June 20, 2019.

Permitting Performance Management Dashboard from June 20, 2019.

In an attempt to meet these goals, and ultimately improve the neighborhood and economic development process in Syracuse, we are excited to announce that our next Innovation Priority Area is Permitting.  Over the next year we will launch a comprehensive series of projects and initiatives to improve permitting customer experience, operations, communication, and process.

Check out the official announcement from Mayor Walsh below, and be sure to follow along on innovatesyracuse.com to learn more about this work!

Performance Management

Performance Management

We are excited to announce that the City of Syracuse is launching a new Performance Management Program. This is a program that allows the entire organization to create alignment and work together to achieve shared goals. We call these goals objectives and key results, and the Performance Management Program utilizes an agile approach to monitor our progress towards them.

Financial Operations Tiger Team

Financial Operations Tiger Team

Currently at the City, there are over 100 fiscal staff enterprise-wide, including 35 employees assigned within individual departments. This decentralization can cause inefficiencies and inconsistencies in our financial operations and is regularly cited as a weakness in our annual audit. To help address the challenges that come with this structure, today, the City of Syracuse is launching a financial operations pilot project.