Each of the service committees collected data for each measure and then discussed collection problems or issues they encountered while trying to capture results. Each form used in collecting data has been organized to assist the service manager. The police data is organized to coincide with information they are also required to supply to the Uniform Crime Report. Several measures were altered or removed due to the collection costs or concerns that the data would not be useful. The committees decided to continue collecting data for at least a year before any other measures would be altered.
Consistency is important if cities plan to review trends from year to year.
Step 7 Develop report formats and create an information management system to assist in retrieving and analyzing data. While developing and agreeing on a standard set of measures may be a challenge to some entities, collecting accurate data and maintaining a system that is easy to use and intuitively displays benchmarking information is the greater obstacle. The Center for Governance collectively houses all of the data for this project and is in the process of developing an interactive database. The purpose of the database is to aid participants in supplying data and using the information for management and policymaking decisions as well as providing performance results to stakeholders and interested citizens. The information is housed in an Access database, which has been created so that project coordinators are easily able to enter data, print reports and create fairly simple ad hoc queries.