2017 Award Recipient

City of Fort Collins 

Highlights

• The City ranks in the top 10 percent of cities nationally 

for the following measures: best place to live, best place 

to work, quality of culture and recreation, availability of 

job opportunities, air quality, and visual attractiveness. 

It ranks in the top 1 percent in quality of drinking water 

and emergency preparedness.

• The City of Fort Collins’ credit rating is “Aaa” by Moody’s 

Investors Service, a rating maintained by only 4 percent 

of governments. This allows the City to pay less interest 

on its debt issuances.

• The City adopts its financial plans based on the Budgeting 

for Outcomes process that involves City staff members at 

all levels as well as citizens. The process allows the City to 

adjust financial forecasts to project a realistic expectation 

of sufficient funds.

• Community energy use has decreased approximately 

12 percent annually for the past three years, while the 

City’s population has grown by roughly 7 percent during 

the same period.

 

City of Fort Collins, Colorado, is a full-service municipal corporation 

operating under a home rule Council–Manager form of government. 

Main product offerings are housing, nuisance abatement, planning, 

fleet, and neighborhood services; recreation programs and facilities; 

parks, natural areas, and trails; water, electric, and storm water 

utilities; natural resource programs; municipal government; police; 

and public transportation program and resources. The City has 

2,408 employees and 2,190 volunteers.

High Citizen Involvement and 

Quality-of-Life Ratings

• According to the Fort Collins Citizen Survey, administered by the 

National Research Center, the City ranks in the top 10 percent of 

cities nationally for the following measures: best place to live, 

best place to work, quality of culture and recreation, availability 

of job opportunities, air quality, and attractiveness. It ranks 

in the top 1 percent in quality of drinking water and emergency 

preparedness. The City attributes these outstanding results to its 

many listening methods for customers and potential customers. 

These methods produce improvement initiatives that are 

prioritized, budgeted, and communicated back as proposals to 

residents and businesses through the City Council.

• In 2014, Fort Collins Police Services implemented a citizen 

survey process about their experiences when interacting with 

police officers. Acting on this feedback, Police Services has 

increased its emphasis on Community-Oriented Policing (COPS) 

as the preferred means of addressing community needs. 

Community Policing Officers build trust by developing one-onone relationships with citizens through programs such as “Shop 

with a Cop” and “Ride-alongs.” The COPS program has contributed 

to resident survey scores on crime prevention that outperform 

both regional and national comparisons.

• Fort Collins is a national leader for environmental goals. 

Community energy use has decreased by approximately 

12 percent annually for the past three years, while the City’s 

population has grown by roughly 7 percent during the same 

period. This has been accomplished through award-winning 

programs such as the City’s Climate Action Plan. In 2014, 

Fort Collins won an award for “outstanding service to 

environmental education by an organization at the local level” 

from the North American Association for Environmental Education.

• Citizen involvement on 27 advisory boards and commissions 

provide input to the Strategic Planning Process. Resident and 

business customer requirements are identified and grouped into 

seven key service areas. Strategic objectives are developed for 

each of these seven areas. In addition, communication methods 

such as City Council meetings and the City’s national awardwinning website (honored as “Best of the Web” by the Center 

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce 
for Digital Government) provide feedback on the City’s performance 

within these same seven areas. The recently added staff position of 

“Civic Engagement Liaison” works to increase inclusion of minority 

groups in these processes.

Collaborative and Open Government

• Senior leaders use a “co-creation model” to work collaboratively 

with City of Fort Collins residents and businesses on solutions 

to urban challenges, resulting in consistently higher overall 

performance scores than regional and national comparisons since 

2008. Collaborative methods include neighborhood gatherings, 

telephone town halls, traditional public meetings, interactive 

website features, and mobile apps that provide engagement 

opportunities suited to various generations, lifestyles, and 

preferences.

• To ensure transparent governance, the City’s boards and 

commissions, City Council, and the executive leadership team 

interact directly with community members on identifying issues, 

short- and long-term planning, and decision making on behalf 

of residents. Service requests and frequently asked questions 

are available to the community via the “Access Fort Collins” 

application, and the City’s social media sites (Twitter or 

Facebook) are followed by over one-third of the City’s population. 

Elected officials also provide annual financial disclosures

regarding their personal income sources, real estate ownership, 

creditors, and business interests. 

• Fort Collins’ leaders provide timely and easy public access to 

the City’s information and data. Online tools promoting

open government, transparency, and accountability include the 

Community Dashboard and scorecard on the City’s performance.

The budget is discussed and finalized in public meetings, and 

the City’s finances are reviewed annually by outside auditors. 

As a result, the City has good to excellent performance levels

for key measures that suggest public trust in its leadership. 

These results include approval by voters of six tax measures over 

the past decade.

Exceptional Financial Results

• The City of Fort Collins’ credit rating is “Aaa” by Moody’s Investors 

Service, a rating maintained by only 4 percent of governments, 

and this allows the City to pay less interest on its debt issuances. 

As a result of this rating, as well as a positive ratio of revenue to 

budget for the past five years, the City’s debt obligations decreased 

from $119 million in 2014 to $90 million in 2016, a 24 percent 

decrease.

• Sales and use tax income, an indicator of the City’s financial 

and market performance, has increased by 19 percent in recent 

years, from $110 million in 2012 to $136 million in 2016. 

This is particularly impressive given that the City’s tax rate is 

among the lowest in the “front range” (regional comparison) region 

of Colorado.

Balance Priorities for Stakeholders

• The City adopts its financial plans based on the Budgeting for 

Outcomes (BFO) process that involves City staff members at all 

levels as well as citizens. The process allows the City to adjust 

financial forecasts to project a realistic expectation of sufficient 

funds. As staff and community members identify issues, innovative 

solutions are proposed to solve them. For example, the Climate 

Action Plan resulted from this process based on input from citizens. 

The BFO process has been named a best practice for allocating 

resources by the Government Finance Officers Association.

• The BFO process helps the City of Fort Collins balance priorities 

for community stakeholders and ensure that financial and other 

resources are available to support key strategic initiatives, while 

the City still meets ongoing obligations. Once strategic objectives 

are determined, an innovative “bidding” process engages various 

service areas throughout the City to submit “offers,” competing 

with other service areas for funding. These offers are posted for 

resident and business input, and the Council ultimately votes 

on priorities to balance citizen and stakeholder needs. 

The effectiveness of the BFO process and a vibrant economy has 

resulted in City budget surpluses for the past five years.

• The City optimizes its use of information technology to listen 

to and provide support for its residents and other customers. 

For example, complaints/comments and suggestions submitted 

through the City’s “Access Fort Collins” website receive an 

acknowledgment and are resolved in no more than ten business 

days. Through the City’s website—which was redesigned to 

accommodate tablets and smart phones—citizens also can pay 

tickets and utility bills and retrieve documents from public records. 

The tech-friendly services helped the City garner recognition last 

year as a “Top 3 Digital City” by Govtech.com.

2017 Award Recipient

City of Fort Collins 

For more information:

City of Fort Collins

300 LaPorte Ave.

Fort Collins, CO 80521

aking@fcgov.com

www.fcgov.com

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

The Baldrige Program educates organizations of all sizes and 

from all sectors in organizational performance management and 

improvement. We also administer the Malcolm Baldrige National

Quality Award. Our key services are to identify and recognize 

role-model organizations, share best management practices, 

and help organizations achieve best-in-class performance levels.

We are the only public-private partnership and Presidential award 

program dedicated to improving U.S. organizations. 

For more information on Baldrige, visit www.nist.gov/baldrige,

call (301) 975-2036, or email us at baldrige@nist.gov.

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce