U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

64–985 cc WASHINGTON : 2000

S. Hrg. 106–598

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA: A PROGRESS REPORT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 9, 2000

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office

U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee, Chairman

WILLIAM V. ROTH, Jr., Delaware

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina

HANNAH S. SISTARE, Staff Director and Counsel

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel

DARLA D. CASSELL, Administrive Clerk

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio, Chairman

WILLIAM V. ROTH, Jr., Delaware

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

Kristine I. Simmons, Staff Director

Marianne Clifford Upton, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel

Julie L. Vincent, Chief Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Opening statements: Page

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 1

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 8

WITNESS

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2000

Hon. Anthony A. Williams, Mayor, District of Columbia:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 3

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19

APPENDIX

Attachment I ............................................................................................................ 24

Attachment II ........................................................................................................... 31

Attachment III ......................................................................................................... 33

(1)

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A PROGRESS REPORT

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2000

U.S. SENATE, OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE, OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:40 a.m., in room

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George V. Voinovich,

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.

Present: Senators Voinovich and Durbin.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH

Senator VOINOVICH. The hearing will come to order.

We have a very busy witness with us here this morning. Mayor,

we are very happy to have you come back and visit with us, and

Ms. Norton, we are glad to have you here with us. Welcome.

Today the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia meets to discuss

performance management in the District of Columbia.

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Mayor on some of

his accomplishments. One of them that we worked together on was

the District of Columbia College Tuition Assistance Act, and I understand, Mayor, that has now been expanded so that D.C. graduates who aspire can attend universities nationwide, exercising one

of the options that you had in the legislation in terms of whether

there were enough openings at the University of Maryland and at

the University of Virginia, and apparently there were not, so it is

now open around the country.

We are pleased that we were able to work with you on that initiative, and I was also pleased that the private sector stepped to

the table to be supportive, and they are well on their way to raising

$30 million for a scholarship fund, so that now the residents of the

District have the same opportunities as if they were to live in one

of our States, and the added benefit, of course, with the scholarship

program.

Mayor, you have also engaged the private sector in a broader discussion of how public-private partnerships can help transform the

District into that ‘‘shining city on the hill,’’ and I want to congratulate you on this initiative and again pledge to you publicly that I

am willing to help in any way, and if the business community

focuses in on some things that they think they would like to accomplish, I would be more than happy to try to help you market it naVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:20 Oct 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 64985.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
2

tionwide so that you can get more than just the folks who live in

and do business in the District.

Mayor WILLIAMS. That is great.

Senator VOINOVICH. This Subcommittee and Congress as a whole

remain committed to fulfilling our responsibility to exercise oversight over governance in our capital city. Congress is responsible

for approving the spending of $1.9 billion in Federal funds in the

District of Columbia, and it is our job to ensure that this money

is spent efficiently and to maximize benefits to D.C. residents.

Just for the record, I asked my staff how much money the Dis- trict receives from the Federal Government, and it is $1.9 billion,

but it is understood that $1.5 billion in Federal funds is to administer various Federal grants provided to State, county and local

governments. So those are the kinds of dollars that you would get

just ordinarily because you are performing the functions that counties, States and municipalities would around the country. Then,

there is an extra $435 million in special Federal payments to the

District of Columbia in regard to court operations, court services,

and offender supervision; and of course, the $17 million in the D.C.

College Access Program.

That gives everyone an idea of just how much money and where

it is coming from, and it should explain why Congress is interested

in reviewing what the District is doing.

In that regard, 1 year ago, this Subcommittee invited Control

Board Chair Rivlin and Council Chair Cropp and you, Mayor Williams, to share your thoughts on how the District could improve its

performance-based management. As I think about it, that was pretty early on in your term. You were a new Mayor coming in, so you

were still getting your feet wet—and I suspect you probably still

think you are getting your feet wet. It took me about 5 years.

We have invited the Mayor to meet with us again today to report

on the District’s progress since last year. The Mayor has unveiled

some promising proposals at our last meeting, from the short-term

action items, to the D.C. Scorecard, to the polling of District residents in order to determine their highest priorities for the city administration.

I look forward to hearing Mayor Williams’ progress report on

achieving these goals. There is no question that the Mayor has devoted considerable time over the past year to determining what the

goals should be for the District by holding neighborhood forums,

compiling the results into comprehensive management strategies

and then establishing goals for the District Government agencies.

On April 20 of this year, the Mayor released the first official set

of Scorecards for the city government. These Scorecards encapsulate the top priorities for each deputy mayor and agency head

into simple checklists. They are easy for the public to understand

and are useful, too, for holding government executives accountable

for their results.

I am somewhat concerned, however, that the District may not be

as far along as it should be in terms of establishing performance

expectations. The General Accounting Office released a report last

month that raised some valid concerns about performance management in the District, reporting that the city was not able to fully

comply with any aspect of the District of Columbia Financial ReVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:20 Oct 06, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 64985.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
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1The prepared statement of Mayor Williams appears in the Appendix on page 19.

sponsibility and Management Assistance Act of 1994. That law requires annual performance plans which establish goals for the next

year and annual performance reports which evaluate the progress

made in meeting the previous year’s goals.

According to GAO, the Mayor’s performance report does not contain the required information for any of the 542 agency goals identified in the accountability plan. The report also does not describe

as required the status of the court orders pertaining to the 12 civil

actions concerning activities of the District during FY 99, nor does

it identify who is responsible for seeing that a particular goal is

met.

The District’s failure to report on the goals set in the FY 99 performance accountability plan, Mayor, was of great concern to me.

However, my staff tells me that these goals were set by the Control

Board, not by the Mayor, and that the Mayor is starting fresh with

his own goals for his administration. I understand that explanation, but I hope that next year, we can expect to see the District’s performance accountability plan in full compliance with the

Federal law.

I am also concerned about the status of the District’s most recent

performance accountability measures as included in this year’s

budget request sent to the Council earlier this year. A majority of

the measures had targets that were left to be determined or had

the exact performance goals of last year. On the other hand, I suspect, Mayor, that year after year, you may have the same performance goals, because it is going to take that long to reach some of

them; they are very ambitious.

Finally, with the performance accountability plans, the D.C.

Scorecards, and other performance monitors like the Neighborhood

Action Plan, I am concerned that the city lacks one comprehensive

plan for holding the agency heads accountable. While all the ingredients seem to be present at this point, they appear to be spread

throughout numerous performance plans.

While I applaud the important steps the Mayor has taken to this

point, I believe that more remains to be done to produce a coherent, easily understood performance plan, and I look forward to

learning about your strategy, Mayor, to meet these challenges.

I appreciate your being here today to report on the District’s

progress and management reform.

When Senator Durbin arrives, I will yield some time to him to

make an opening statement.

Mayor, again, we are glad to have you here. I appreciate the good

relationship that we have and the telephone calls and the occasional meetings.

Please proceed.

TESTIMONY OF HON. ANTHONY A. WILLIAMS,1 MAYOR,

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mayor WILLIAMS. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for your interest in and support for our city, and particularly for your commitment to work with us in broadening our public-private partnerships to include the private sector all over our country, because we

4

1 Attachment I referred to appears in the Appendix on page 24.

are our Nation’s Capital, and we think that businesses all over this

country should have a sense of responsibility and ownership and

commitment to what happens in our city, and we certainly welcome

that, and I want to thank you and Senator Durbin when he gets

here, our congresswoman, Congresswoman Norton, who has joined

me, for the opportunity to testify on what we are doing in performance management in the District.

In the last 15 months of my administration, the District Government has made great strides in instituting a performance management system that I believe does introduce accountability for each

and every agency, for every employee and, as we get into this more

extensively, I hope that for our business community, our faith community and our nonprofits, in order to really transform the way we

do business, making us more responsive to our citizens.

I believe the approach that we have taken, while it leaves much

to be done, and I would readily agree with that, has shown promising results in our first year, and we are going to continue to drive

change using this system.

When we took office, we found the challenges that we inherited

were quite daunting. For one, accountability for the District workforce was rare, if nonexistent. We had a deeply-entrenched culture

resistant to change. There was an infrastructure decimated by deferred maintenance and disinvestment; and technology needs that

were grossly inadequate.

I would argue that a year has made a dent in many of these

things, but it has made only a dent.

My first priority to get started was to restore faith in government

by demonstrating rapid, visible improvements in basic services, so

I challenged my cabinet to set an aggressive short-term action

agenda. We set concrete objectives with measurable deadlines ranging from a month to no more than a year, and I am proud to report

that we completed 90 percent of them during 1999.

However, short-term initiatives are only a down payment. To me,

they were there only to build that initial trust and confidence in

the government, to give us a little momentum, but ultimately, the

challenges facing our city are significantly greater, and we recognize that.

I would like to simply submit for the record the full list of the

initiatives, but I want to highlight a few of them and describe how

we are building on these short-term successes.1

For example, we restructured electrical and building permit processes, eliminating a several-months-long backlog of electrical permits by February and completing 80 percent of complex building

reviews within 30 days through 1999. Today, 80 percent of electrical permits are issued within 48 hours, and 95 percent of complex building plans are reviewed within 30 days, which is a significant improvement over the past.

We established a single phone number for residents to call for information and service requests with the launch of the Citywide

Call Center, 727–1000, in April 1999. Today we average more than

2,000 phone calls per day, and we can track data on frequently-requested services and how long it takes to resolve them. We are

5

building a database where our citizens get a case number, and we

hope that in the future—and we are building this process now—we

will be able to actually track where their response is somewhere in

the agencies as we are responding.

There is a lot of work to be done. We have gone from a system

where people rarely answer the phone and were impolite to where

people now answer the phone, are polite, do not always know what

we are talking about, but they are polite, and I think that is

progress.

Welcome, Senator Durbin. I am happy to stop if the Senator

wants to make a statement.

Senator DURBIN. No. Please continue.

Mayor WILLIAMS. We targeted open-air drug markets in six communities, and arrests increased through stepped-up enforcement.

Now the police department is closely tracking drug activity statistics to document how this short-term action will show reductions

in drug activity over time. This initiative has evolved into the Capital Communities Program, a comprehensive strategy to focus a

broad spectrum of resources on distressed communities. In some of

these Capital Communities Programs, we have seen some indicators of crime go down by more than 50 percent.

So on the basis of our building this initial confidence in the government with the short-term goals, we decided to do something a

little untraditional. We decided that in order to build a comprehensive performance management system in the government, we needed to empower citizens to set the priorities for our government. I

believe that our citizens have had 20 to 25 years of pent-up civic

pride; they love our city, and they are itching to make a difference

in our individual neighborhoods. For far too long, local government

has not been a reliable partner for our citizens. We wanted to

change that, and we started with what we are calling Neighborhood Action, which I would argue is the broad umbrella that will

bring all these plans ultimately together.

At our first summit in November, more than 3,000 citizens from

all over the city answered the call and spent over 7 hours developing a plan for the city. And it was not just a chit-chat session.

We compiled these comments and used citizen priorities to put together the budget for next year. We used them to develop a citywide strategic plan with very specific measurable goals for each

agency of government.

The plan is organized around five broad themes that are really

common to many cities and certainly are important to our city. The

first is achieving Unity of Purpose. An example of Unity of Purpose

is building public-private partnerships. Another example is building partnerships with the faith community; making government

work—answering the phones, paving the streets, managing fiber

optic cuts; promoting economic development—bringing in commercial investment; producing housing; strengthening families, children and youth—the tragic story of what happened to Brianna is

an example of the work we need to do in strengthening families

and children; and finally, building and sustaining healthy neighborhoods and public safety is a premier example of the need in that

area.

6

1 Attachment II referred to appears in the Appendix on page 31.

Our detailed plan, though, is a great way to keep our government focused and to hold agency directors accountable, but by

itself, I believe it is not going to engage our citizens. I want our

citizens to be able to see the progress we are making in achieving

their priorities, and until they have some evidence that our government is a reliable partner, I believe they will have less incentive

to invest themselves, their own resources, their own synagogues,

churches, and nonprofits in the interests of our community.

So we have developed a set of Scorecards for myself, for my deputy mayors, and for each of our agency directors, based on the citizens’ goals in this plan, and they are listed on Attachment II,1 entitled ‘‘Going to Bat for the District,’’ and they are available at our

website, washingtondc.gov.

We are building a virtual e-government, and I hope citizens will

keep track of our progress this way. Every citizen can see the score

every day; they can see how it changes. And I think that this government in so doing will become more accountable to our public.

Now, issuing a Scorecard is similar to the strategy of last year’s

short-term action agenda in that we define the goals and inform

the public of what they are. We gave agency leadership the resources and support needed to meet their goals, and we established

a system to hold them accountable at the end of the day.

I recognize that many of the goals we set for ourselves are a

stretch, but I would rather have ambitious targets and come close,

rather than meet or exceed timid, weak goals. So this year’s goals,

for example, include some real stretches. One, for example, is 2,000

new and rehabilitated housing units under construction by December 2000. This is well in excess of last year’s production, which is

already significant in and of itself.

Another goal is the reduction of 911 response times to 8 minutes

for 90 percent of critical medical calls for service. Right now, just

to give you a sense of context, only 42 percent of calls meet that

standard. So there is a lot of work to be done to meet that goal.

Another goal is reduced wait times at Department of Motor Vehicles to 30 minutes or less for 80 percent of driver’s license and inspection transactions. We had declared that we were meeting a 30-

minute goal until we actually started measuring what was happening, and then we recognized that, whoops—we were really far

away from that 30-minute goal. To me, the Department of Motor

Vehicles is a great example of where these goals are meaningless,

these Scorecards are meaningless, unless there is some independent validation, and I will talk about that in a second.

But the Scorecard is only one element of the broader performance management system we have in place for evaluation. It is a

public statement of a few commitments we are making, but it is

not the exhaustive list of everything in our Citywide Strategic

Plan.

To capitalize on short-term successes and to institute long-term

systemic changes, last spring, I instructed agency directors to develop strategic plans evaluating existing practices and proposing

comprehensive improvements for their agencies. Directors were to

make tough assessments of their organizations’ strengths and

7

1 Attachment III referred to appears in the Appendix on page 33.

weaknesses and competencies; question what businesses their

agencies were in and what businesses they should get out of; and

identify strategies for change.

I have set up performance contracts based on these agency plans

with my deputy mayors and agency directors so that they know exactly what they are responsible for delivering, and their job security depends on their effectiveness. These are attached in Attachment III,1 and an example is the DMV performance contract.

Again, this performance contract, like the Scorecard, will be related

to the Citywide Strategic Plan, which will serve as the one single,

unified plan to which you referred, Senator.

However, we are not waiting for mid-year and year-end evaluations to judge agency successes. We are tracking the performance

contract commitments on an ongoing basis. And to give you a flavor

of the types of commitments and results we are seeing this year,

I can talk about DMV, which is one of our highest-profile customer

service operations.

Almost every resident has to register a car, have it inspected,

and get a driver’s license. Sherryl Hobbs Newman set an ambitious

year 2000 goal of 80 percent of license and registration transactions

within 30 minutes as new data system were revealing the extent

of the problem with average process times of 1 hour or more. The

District just announced aggressive strategies to move us toward

the target by December 2000, for example—additional personnel

and additional counter bays at the C Street main facility; we are

going to be open now on weekdays later this month until 10 p.m.,

and we are hoping that by distributing volume overall, those hours

and throughout all those bays, as well as organizing our traffic better, we can reach this goal. Also, customer service training will be

developed and provided by USAIR, an example of a public-private

partnership. We have also received from USAIR stress management for our employees. If you are an employee sitting at the

counter, and you are dealing with people who have been waiting

for an hour, they are not always in the best mood or temper. This

week, we will announce temporary trailers as we explore sites for

additional facilities. We are building a new satellite to the DMV,

but we are not waiting for that; we are actually going to be putting

up temporary sites to relieve the load down at C Street. And finally, we will have site designs that address parking needs of residents visiting DMV, because there is nothing more galling than to

come down to register your car and find no place to park, then you

wait too long, and when you come out, you have a $50 ticket on

your car. That does not put people in a good mood.

On the Office of Contracting and Procurement, our initial analysis of the agency’s workload there indicated that nearly half of

agency transactions were for less than $2,500, but less than one

percent of the District’s contract dollars were spent on these small

transactions. So we proposed an innovative strategy to establish

purchase cards for those small transactions. This was piloted at our

D.C. Public Library in November, and nine additional agencies will

come on line by July 2000. In addition, Contracting and Procurement is working with the D.C. Public Schools to deploy purchase

8

cards there as part of a broader initiative to empower D.C. Public

Schools with its own procurement authority. I also list in my testimony, submitted for the record, the Department of Parks and

Recreation.

But I want to talk briefly about accountability, because with performance contracts in place for directors at mission-critical agencies, the D.C. Office of Personnel is rolling out a comprehensive

performance management program throughout our government in

the summer of 2000. Our agencies are developing performance

agreements for every District employee aligned to the Citywide

Strategic Plan, which again is the unified plan that we are seeking,

and all of our agencies’ goals and objectives. All of these agreements will be in place by October 2000.

This is part of my goal to create a Unity of Purpose in which we

want all of our employees to understand our Citywide Strategic

Plan and accept and adopt a personal role in supporting and executing that plan, and then incorporate the goals and objectives of

this plan in their day-to-day work.

How can we be sure that we are meeting these goals? We are not

just taking agency reports on faith. Agencies are required to provide a clear definition of each Scorecard measure, how the data is

collected, how it is calculated and reported. This approach is based

on the Office of Management and Budget’s guidelines to Federal

agencies for ensuring verifiable and valid performance data. A

great example again is the DMV where, before we had the schematic system where you can actually measure waiting times, we

could tell people that we had 30-minute waiting times, and no one

really knew. Now that we have some measurement device to actually validate our information, we know that we have work to do.

On remaining work to be done, I believe that my administration

has made significant progress linking strategic planning, budget

formulation, performance expectations and evaluation, but I recognize and certainly acknowledge the need to do much more. Sustaining progress, ensuring valid and reliable data, unifying the different plans, and benchmarking progress against other jurisdictions are among our objectives for year 2000.

For us, ‘‘performance management’’ is not just a catch phrase. It

is our way to make sure that our students get the books they need;

it is our way to make sure that our senior citizens get the meals

they need; it is our way to ensure that teachers will be paid on

time, that foster families get the services they need. In short, it is

our way to show that democracy can work in the District of Columbia and that we can make our way toward the city we all know and

love.

I thank you very much for the opportunity to testify, and I would

be happy to answer your questions.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Mayor.

Senator Durbin, we welcome you this morning. I want to publicly

acknowledge the conscientiousness of Senator Durbin. We have

been having lots of meetings, and Senator, I really appreciate that

fact that you are here.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

Senator DURBIN. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.

9

I want to apologize for coming in late and also for the fact that

the full Appropriations Committee is meeting as of this moment,

and I will be asked to go there for the markup shortly. I wear two

hats, as the Ranking Democrat on both the authorizing and appropriating subcommittees for the District of Columbia, so I will try

to do both duties, and I thank you for your leadership.

We are fortunate to have in the room two men with mayoral experience on a Capitol Hill which is populated by a lot of people who

apparently want mayoral experience, because they try to run your

city for you, Mr. Mayor. And I am not one of them—I think you

are doing a fine job. I have seen a lot of leaders before you who

have tried, and I think you have achieved more in the 16 or so

months that you have served.

Delegate Norton, of course, fights this battle on a daily basis over

in the House of Representatives, and I salute her for her leadership.

I think that your reaching out to the neighborhoods to establish

priorities—and it has been recognized nationally—is the kind of

grassroots leadership that the District of Columbia needs so the

government connects with the people who live here.

There was a big controversy last year over the proposed tax cut

that came from the City Council, and as a result of that, I asked

for quarterly reports from your administration about some key indicators that I think really help us to understand whether we are

making progress in the District of Columbia. They run the gamut

from public health concerns, rat eradication, to questions about

public safety, which of course are paramount in the minds of everyone who visits and lives in the District. But I guess the most important one in my mind was children and whether the District is

responding, both in the schools and in the city services, to the

needs of the children. This hearing is a good illustration of an effort to make sure the best management techniques are in place.

My only question to you, if I might, Mr. Chairman, before I have

to leave is whether you feel that the system that you are currently

using to measure standards starts with good baseline data. Of

course, you have to establish that before you can establish whether

or not you are making progress. How do you come up with

verifiable baseline data in terms of performance and services available to the residents of the District of Columbia?

Mayor WILLIAMS. Senator, one of the reasons why some of the reports that GAO refers to, and the Senator referred to, have information left out is not only because in some instances, we inherited

performance plans, in some instances, we do not yet have full authority over parts of the government, part of the reason is because

we do not yet have the information in some of these agencies on

which to build a reliable performance program. We felt it was important to put in place those operations and processes and systems,

get the data, and then build a plan, as opposed to just putting a

plan out there for plan’s sake.

So we have made a conscious effort to begin with our agencies,

come up with an initial discussion of a Strategic Plan, then go to

our citizens and, working with our citizens, come up with a final

Strategic Plan and then build that out through our budget, build

that out through our agencies.

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We have now, for example, begun a compensation classification

system where every employee will have a sense of ownership of this

plan. And initially, 1,200 employees will be signed on.

To give you an example of agencies outside our control, we have

brought in Grace Lopes, who is our representative with the receivers in consultation with the different plaintiffs’ groups, in consultation with the different judges involved. We want to establish standards and expectations with them and then fold them into our plan.

We are trying to work with the school system to fold it in and,

piece by piece, build one unified, comprehensive whole beginning

with what we can control and then working our way out. And it

is painstaking and laborious.

Senator DURBIN. I think you are on the right track, and I am

really impressed with the job that you have done and hope to help

you in my capacity here on the Hill.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to say a few words before I have to run off.

Mayor WILLIAMS. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate it.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator.

Mayor, I would like to just focus on a couple of big areas before

we get into some of the details. Did you understand in my opening

statement what I was driving at in terms of coordinating and getting all these plans organized so that it is easy to understand?

Mayor WILLIAMS. Yes.

Senator VOINOVICH. I would be interested in your comments

about how you think that can get done.

Mayor WILLIAMS. As you know, I think it was part of the Appropriations Act and maybe the Revitalization Act for the District,

there was a requirement analogous to GPRA that we have a performance plan for the District and then a management report on

the basis of that plan.

As the report indicates—and I make no contest with it—there

were problems in that we inherited a planning structure that had

been started by the Control Board, and everyone knew that we

were going to put in place our own planning and reporting structure, and we have begun to do that.

It was also mentioned that there were many goals at lower levels

that were left out; there were some agency managers who were left

out. In the case of agency managers, because we are in the process

of working our way into the agencies, creating this Management

Supervisory Service, which I would be happy to talk about and

where in many instances there may be some changes, we want to

wait until new managers were in place who felt sponsorship of the

plan, who accepted the plan, and to put their measures in place as

opposed to again imposing these measures on someone who may

not have been part of creating them, may not have had ownership

of them.

Finally—and I think this is a big part that really isn’t referred

to in the GAO report—you have receiverships, you have the

schools, you have independent boards and commissions that are not

directly under the authority and in some instances are not at all

under the authority of the Mayor, and here, it is going to take coordination and cooperation of independent entities to work toward

this unified whole.

11

I am confident that we can do that, but we wanted to begin initially with agencies under our own control, because it is my vision

that we not only have receiverships involved in this, the schools involved in this, the boards and commissions involved in this, but I

have taken some initial steps—and again, this is a long road—to

try to get the business community and the faith community involved in this.

To give you an example of the faith community, as an initial

step, in addition to our regular Mayor’s prayer breakfast which the

city has held now for 25 years, we had a National Conference on

the Role of Faith Community and Community-Building, and we

had Reverend Floyd Flake from New York as our keynote speaker,

talking about ways in which the faith community can play a role

in family counseling, crisis intervention, support for children, and

education.

My vision is that ultimately, if you look at a performance plan

for our community, it is not just what we expect the government

to do but what all of us expect one another to do, if that makes

sense.

Senator VOINOVICH. The thing that I am really interested in, in

anticipation, a year from now is that the Neighborhood Action Plan

presents goals for each department and agency, and that is a great

idea to go out to the citizens and ask what they want, talking to

the customers—too often we do not talk to the customers, and we

decide what they want, and then we find out that it is not really

what they want—but you have that.

Then, the performance contract lays out three levels of performance—below expectations, met expectations, and exceeded expectations. And then, the performance measures in this year’s budget

proposals appear to identify the responsible manager for each goal.

I guess what I am driving at is that you have your neighborhood

goals, and you have your Scorecard, and to make sure that is all

in the same performance plan so that you do not look at the Scorecard over here and see how you are doing here, and you have your

performance plan over here—because in so many instances, it is

the same stuff. I just think that from a measurement and accountability point of view, if you have it in one document——

Mayor WILLIAMS. Right—and we could go into great detail on

this in September. But we could start with a citywide plan that is

a combination of what we are hearing from our agencies and from

our citizens, and there would be a set of stated goals. Then, from

those goals would come the measures that we are using to put into

performance contracts with the agencies. From those same goals

would come the measures that go into the budget, which really

serves as the performance plan for the District for purposes of this

act. We would like to see the timing change so that when we submit the performance plan, we are also submitting the budget, because they really should go together, as you know, and we want

them to go together.

From these same goals would come not only the budget and

these performance contracts, but would come the Scorecard, and

these would be the measures that we are testing in terms of this

evaluation.

So I really see all of it as being connected.

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Senator VOINOVICH. That does provide a problem, because if I am

not mistaken, I think the law says that the performance plan is

due on March 1. I know that you have decided that you want to

wait until the budget—do you want to go into that? Because we

have had some people look at that, and they have come back, and

they really do not feel it is necessary that the performance plan

and the budget have to be at the same time; that there is no reason

why you cannot put a performance plan in earlier and then submit

your budget to the Council.

Would you like to comment on that?

Mayor WILLIAMS. Well, I think that to work well, the performance plan and the budget have to work together and really have

to contain a lot of the same information, because modern budgeting

is performance budgeting, and folks who say that we can do the

performance plan and then do the budget are correct in the abstract, but they have got to be down where we are, trying to do a

budget in the District. We have one of the most complicated budget

processes in the Nation because of the number of people who are

involved. We are doing our budget without the same—even in the

best of circumstances, for example, when we get our audit done in

February, we are doing our budget without the kind of lead time

that other jurisdictions have to properly forecast economic conditions, revenues and expenditures. We have got to go through a very

laborious and painstaking process.

In the best of worlds, I would like to see our city have a biennial

budget process because we spend such an enormous amount of time

on the budget. We finish one budget, and by the time it gets to the

Congress, we have already started another budget.

So in the midst of all this, we have to also give the proper weight

and attention—and I want to give enormous weight and attention—to performance planning on a different cycle—we are just

adding another cycle to a system that already has a lot of cycles.

And it certainly can be done in the abstract, but it is very difficult.

Senator VOINOVICH. The law is that it has got to be by March

1, and I think if it is possible that you could do that by next year

by March 1, I think it would be well-taken; and maybe you will be

in a much better position to do it after you have put the two of

them together this year.

The other thing is that many people have no comprehension in

terms of the responsibilities you have. You have the typical municipal responsibilities, you have county responsibilities, and you have

some State responsibilities. How many different budgets do you

have—is the city budget coincidental with the Federal budget?

When I was a county commissioner, we had the county budget

which was on a July cycle, we had the Federal budget which was

on an October cycle, and then we had a city budget that was on

a calendar, and we had to try to keep track of the revenue sources.

Is the city budget based on the same as the Federal budget cycle,

beginning in October?

Mayor WILLIAMS. Right. Our budget is a Federal budget, and

most State and local jurisdictions that I know of are July 1, and

June 30.

Senator VOINOVICH. So you have one budget calendar—your city

budget then coincides with the Federal budget?

13

Mayor WILLIAMS. Right, and we are trying to jam an enormous

amount of processing, planning, coordination—you are trying to

wrap up your audit of 1 year; you are beginning your execution of

another year, and in many instances, you have just started your

execution because the budget did not start until January because

people could not agree on whatever they could not agree on; and

you are also trying to plan another budget.

I do not know what is particularly sacrosanct about March 1.

Senator VOINOVICH. I do not, either, but that is what the law

says.

Mayor WILLIAMS. Yes.

I was also going to mention that most—I am trying to think if

there are some—but from my own experience, I know that the way

the GPRA was established and constructed, the Federal agencies

submit their performance plans with their budget. So just to be

consistent, I think it would make sense for us to do the same. It

is not the end of the world; it is just something that would certainly allow this planning process to work better and more efficiently for everybody involved.

Senator VOINOVICH. My only comment is that you are going to

do it for the first time this year, and you might give some thought

to doing it in terms of the deadline for next year.

One of the things that has come to the attention of this Subcommittee is the human capital crisis in the Federal Government.

With the low unemployment, would you like to comment on your

ability to attract talented people to head various city agencies and

how that is coming along?

Mayor WILLIAMS. In every position that I have filled at a high

level in this government, I have worked with the business community. In the first instance, as I got started, one of our major companies here gave us four or five headhunting firms to work with us

on a whole range of different positions, and I expected a long line

of people at my door, ready to come on in. But a tight labor market,

the daunting challenges that confront the city, and frankly, a history of this city where we have a reputation for bringing everyone

out into the palace courtyard and executing them periodically, just

created a situation where that line was not as long as I would have

liked it to be.

We have continued to work with our business community and the

Federal Government to recruit the very best and most able people,

but I think that our medium- and even long-term salvation is really to spend a lot of time and attention on this Management Supervisory Service and groom our own farm team. Looking at your own

city and other cities, one of the things that impressed me was that

for many of these positions, they are hiring people in the city; they

are hiring people who worked in the government or worked in the

private sector in the city. There is this talent pool in the city that

they are drawing from. I think we need to build and maintain that

same talent pool here so that every time there is an opening, we

can readily draw on ready talent that we have already nurtured

and groomed in our own ranks.

I think that having a Management Supervisory Service where everyone is working at will, in exchange for top-quality pay, is going

to allow us to do that.

14

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I must say, looking at what we are

doing on the Federal level, that we have some major problems, because by 2004, 31 percent of our people will be leaving, and another 21 percent will be eligible to retire. It might be interesting

for you to get a little snapshot of exactly where your workforce is

in terms of retirement.

The other issue is the competency that you need in your various

departments and getting a handle on it. So often, whether you are

going to be able to perform some of the things that you want to—

not often, but most of the time—has to do with whether you can

get the qualified people to do the work. I think the issue of human

capital—and we will make something available to you—is really an

issue that, in putting together performance plans and other things,

sometimes seems to get the back of the hand; you put it together,

and nobody is thinking about what kind of people are we going to

need in order to achieve these goals that we have set for ourselves.

The other thing I would be interested to know is what you have

done in terms of benchmarking. You mentioned your Department

of Motor Vehicles. Have you examined other departments around

the country in terms of how they handle their situations, so you

could copy those that are working? How are you going about making that improvement to reduce it down to that—I think your goal

is a 30-minute waiting period.

Mayor WILLIAMS. At a very broad macro level, as you know, in

my first year, I spent a lot of time in other cities looking at how

they did business and really looking at individual agencies and how

they worked, collecting information, and began benchmarking at a

broad level, a citywide level, if you will.

We have worked with an organization called the ICMA, and my

first budget last year had a lot of benchmarking information; and

we plan a systemic effort now of including this same kind of comparative information in the performance plan that we will be doing

in the next year, and in the next budget and the next performance

plan will have a heavy dose of this benchmarking information, because for one thing, it gives us a way to understand what we need

to do in terms of performance, and it also is data that we need to

understand what right-sizing our government means. Everyone believes that we can right-size the District Government, that it is still

inefficient and out-of-size in many, many different ways, but to

what level.

To give you an example, in the police department, we have some

benchmarking on the police department. We can use this information to determine over the long run where we want our police department to be, or over the long run, where do we want DMV to

be.

Sometimes, though, you get conflicting information. New York

City has a tremendous drop in crime, has the highest number of

officers per capita in the country, but at the same time, San Diego

had the greatest drop in crime of any of the major cities, and they

have the lowest ratio of police per capita.

Senator VOINOVICH. That is one of the things that we talked

about earlier, and I would love to have you come back in September to talk about how you are going to coordinate all of these

plans so we can get ready for next year, and I would also like to

15

go into more detail on the police department. It is an interesting

issue in regard to size. So often, it is not how many you have but

what you do with the ones that you have.

Do you have any idea how many or what percentage of your department is employed out on the street?

Mayor WILLIAMS. The chief and I would both agree it is still too

little, but we have made a goal over the next year to get 200 more

police officers out on the street. That is a combination of 150 officers that we hope to recruit either laterally or through new hires

and 50 that we are going to get from behind desks as part of this

civilianization program.

Having said that, though, I think the chief has done a good job

in two things. He has done something we used to call ‘‘Summer

Mobile Force,’’ and we are now just calling ‘‘Mobile Force,’’ because

we do it all year, where we have a special deployment of police out

on the street at any given time at night. We have also created

something called ‘‘Power Shift’’ that you may have heard some controversy about, where we have tried to align the deployment of our

officers not 9 to 5, but to the time when crime is most likely to

occur, which as you know is not 9 to 5—it happens in the evening.

That has definitely had an effect out there in the neighborhoods.

Senator VOINOVICH. Do you have all two-men cars, or do you

have one-man, or does it vary?

Mayor WILLIAMS. I would say, based on the operation and division, it varies.

Senator VOINOVICH. So there is no requirement that you have

two people in each automobile?

Mayor WILLIAMS. On that, I could get back to you on what the

actual requirement is.

Senator VOINOVICH. Yes. As I said, I would really like to get into

some of the detail in terms of deployment and how they are deployed and response time.

You were saying regarding Emergency Medical Services that you

want to get it down below 8 minutes; is that correct?

Mayor WILLIAMS. Down below 8 minutes, and it is a combination

of the actual response time of the fire and EMS and the actual

processing in the call center. We are doing our share in terms of

building a cadre of people who are better able to respond to the

calls and answer them effectively and professionally, our own system, and working with Bell Atlantic, a private vendor, to see that

we have upgraded their component of the system as well, because

there is a systems component, a people part, and the fire and EMS

part. On the fire and EMS part, we have launched a pilot under

former Chief Tippett to cross-train our fire suppression and EMS

people so that your first-line responder is better able to respond to

that emergency, because what actually happens in many instances

is that you have someone respond, but they are not able or

equipped to respond to that medical emergency. So we are trying

to change that.

Senator VOINOVICH. I know a little something about that, because last year, we had an emergency in Cleveland, and I was not

aware that they had changed the system, but not only did EMS

show up, but we had a big fire truck come down the street. That

is the new protocol—they send EMS and the fire service. Of course,

16

my question was what if a fire occurred at this time, and apparently, they would respond to the fire; but they decided to back up

the EMS. It was amazing to me, because they got there in about

a minute and a half. It was just incredible—and I do not think they

were waiting outside the house.

Mayor WILLIAMS. One thing I have learned as Mayor is that

there are fire suppression personnel, and there are EMS people,

and they are different; and there is a fierce debate around the

country on this whole issue.

Senator VOINOVICH. And that debate is still going on in my home

town.

The interesting thing is to find out how other people are doing

things, because you have to jump-start some things. I was going to

say that best practices in terms of things like procurement, using

the Smart Card and doing some of the lower purchases using the

card instead of the typical paperwork that one has to do in terms

of procurement, is a big issue.

Mayor WILLIAMS. I blatantly steal from other cities, and they

know I do that.

Senator VOINOVICH. There is nothing wrong with that as long as

they are best practices and they are working.

I just want to emphasize again the importance of the human capital part of the job in terms of the quality of the people that you

have, the ability to keep those who are quality, the ability to attract new people to come to work for the city, the issue of incentive

programs, the issue of training of your workers, and the issue of

empowering people who work for you, because I really believe that

those of us in government are going to be in a more and more difficult position in the next couple of years in terms of holding the

people that we have and also trying to encourage them to come to

work for us—particularly people who have special skills. As we

move more toward technology, it is going to be more and more difficult to attract them, because the private sector is really doing a

job of enticing them to go to work for them. It is a terrible thing

to wake up one day and find out you do not have the folks; or, in

the alternative, I recall when I became Mayor of Cleveland that

one of the problems we had was that our salary schedule was not

competitive. My folks said you cannot go to the council and ask

them for more money, and I said why not. They said, well, you are

asking for more money to hire people. And I said, if they want me

to hire good people, I have to have a salary schedule that is competitive. So I said let us go and talk to them about it. And it was

amazing, after I explained what the situation was and the kind of

people that we wanted to bring to the city and where we were in

terms of our salary schedule, that they got it, and they adjusted

the salary schedule so we could attract those individuals.

Again, so often, there is the reaction that these are ‘‘government

workers.’’ Well, I think government workers are the finest workers

we have in America and are very, very underrated, and I think

that if we are going to keep the good ones and attract the other

ones, we have got to have a really good plan in place that will create an environment where they want to stay with us because they

feel they are challenged, and they are being recognized, and also

17

have a program where you can encourage new people to come in

and go to work for you.

Mayor WILLIAMS. I know, Senator, in our city—this may hold

true with the Federal Government—as far as our demographics, we

have a huge number of people now who are retiring. So the good

news is that we can use this as an easier way—I will put it that

way—to bring our government to its right size without huge RIFs

or devastation of the work force. But the bad side of it is—you are

right—that if you are not careful—and this has happened to our

city in the past, where we had to make some serious cuts, and we

used early buyouts, for example, early retirement—if you are not

careful, you lose a lot of your institutional knowledge and wherewithal and expertise.

Senator VOINOVICH. You just gave me an idea, Mayor—maybe

that is one reason why we have even more to worry about in the

Federal Government. People reach age 55, and they can retire and

go to work for the D.C. Government—and I know you are not out

recruiting them right now.

Mayor WILLIAMS. It is an interesting thought, though. [Laughter.]

Senator VOINOVICH. Last but not least, you and I have talked on

several occasions about cooperative agreements, and I called you in

particular about the Hill, and I would like to report to you that we

have had some excellent relations with Gary Albrecht, and from

what I understand there is a good relationship, a cooperative

agreement, between the D.C. Police and the Capitol Police, but that

we have other agencies here on the Hill that should be part of

those cooperative agreements. So I would like to continue to pursue

that with you and would like to talk about that again in September

to see how much cooperation you have been able to get to see if

we cannot enhance the reaction to crime not only on the Hill, but

also to deal with some of the other agencies that we have around

Washington. For example, I know that after the tragedy that occurred at the Zoo, you called and talked about that issue.

So we are going to do everything we can to encourage Federal

agencies that have separate security departments to investigate the

opportunities they may have to work more closely with the District.

I really believe that if those cooperative agreements can be entered

into, and there is more communication back and forth between the

security forces here in the District, that everyone will be a lot

safer, and we will be doing a better job of utilizing the resources

that we currently have.

There is no reason why there cannot be much better communication and more cooperation among the various police entities that

we have in the District.

Mayor WILLIAMS. I recall, Mr. Chairman, before you were in your

current position and I was Mayor—this was during the height of

our fiscal crisis and our other problems—I was pushing very hard

for cooperation between the different police departments, because

I think a lot of people in our city feel that, for example, the IMF

and the World Bank, in terms of managing traffic and motorcades,

do a great job of cooperating with one another, and we can build

on that.

18

I believe there have been gaps sometimes where we can share intelligence and know-how and we have not.

Senator VOINOVICH. I would like—and maybe Congresswoman

Norton can help out, too—to encourage those Federal agencies that

have separate security departments to reach out and have a little

better relationship with the D.C. Police Department. Too often, I

think they have an idea that they just have their separate little domain and turf, and they do not really need to bother with anyone

else. But if they really think about it, they could enhance their own

capabilities by understanding that they do have a symbiotic relationship with a lot of the other security forces that you have in the

District.

Mayor WILLIAMS. Yes.

Senator VOINOVICH. Do you have anything else that you would

like to share with me today?

Mayor WILLIAMS. I think the thing that we are most excited

about is using your good offices to broaden this partnership that

really is emerging between our city and the business community,

and I think the most spectacular example is what the Congress

was able to do and our business leaders, the civic leadership of the

city, with the College Access Program. For the first time, that represented the regional and District business leadership coming together with government leaders. If we can use that model to now

expand and include businesses all over the country, I think that

has exciting possibilities.

I have talked with the business community here, and our goal

over the next year is to try to see that every school has a business

sponsor, and in conjunction with that business sponsor, we are getting the very best principals, and we are getting a good business

manager for each school. This is just one example of what that

kind of program can develop and anticipate.

Senator VOINOVICH. I know you have been meeting with the

business community, and I am anxious to hear what they finally

agree to do. As I have told you, I have talked with the Cleveland

Tomorrow people, I have talked with the Cleveland Scholarship

people, and if you are ever interested in having them come in to

sit down with you and your business community, I would be more

than happy to get that done.

Mayor WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate it.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thanks for being here today. We will see you

again.

Mayor WILLIAMS. Thank you.

Senator VOINOVICH. Our meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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