The overview
Ernst & Young, a professional services network, conducted the study, a process that included interviewing nearly 12,000 city employees, sending surveys, analyzing data, reviewing all 22 city departments and benchmarking those findings against other cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Philadelphia.
Based on the assessment, the study found that four key areas need to better managed to rebuild confidence in the city’s government, including:
- Performance and accountability
- Operations and efficiency
- Spending and procurement
- Financial control and risks
Mayor John Whitmire said he will make sure the recommendations laid out in the report are implemented.
“If we can get the government its assessment reports, get the city government functioning at a higher standard, Houston would be the greatest city in the world,” he said.
Performance and accountability
Deputy Chief of Staff Steven David said during the meeting that Houston lags behind peer cities when it comes to emergency response times from EMS and fire departments, crime rate, income inequality and racial disparities. The study found that city programs tend to focus on “output” rather than “outcome,” and that programs should focus on the successes rather than the number of work they do.
“A good way to compare [data] would be ... the number of fire calls that we responded to,” David said. “It’s a great way to know volume, but it’s not a great way to understand whether or not we’re achieving the goals we set for ourselves. The difference between an output measure and an outcome measure would be the number of fires we responded to, or the number of fires we responded to in under eight minutes.”
Operations and efficiency
Cynthia Wilson, special advisor for organizational culture and education, said the study also found that city employees spend over 30% of their time in operational and administrative activities, such as reading emails and preparing reports. The report found that the city struggles to retain and recruit employees because of a lack of clear career pathways and due to some salaries being below market value. Additionally, she said 40% of supervisors oversee fewer than four employees.
"If you have too many leaders who are giving a small number of direct reports a message, the message becomes choppy,” Wilson said during the meeting. “What we need when we want to be more efficient is consistency of message, consistency of vision, so that we have common language, common knowledge [and a] common understanding of where we’re going."
Wilson said the report does not recommend staff layoffs, but rather better management of spending and organization.
Spending and procurement
Newport said the study identified numerous duplicative contracts with different pricing levels for similar services. Additionally, he said the city could save more if they begin better managing and coordinating the city’s spending.
Financial control and risks
David said the study looked at financial activity over the past six years and found that there are anomalies in purchasing cards—also known as P-cards that are used to make purchases for official city business, according to a city document. The cards were used to split payments that would’ve been over transaction limits and to purchase items from prohibited vendors such as Amazon, he said.
David said city staff developed a “first of its kind” system that would assist in flagging suspicious transactions, allowing them to investigate purchases that were made without the City Council’s approval—typically purchases that are over $50,000.
