It's been said that "What gets measured, gets done".  With that in mind, the City has been measuring its performance for a number of years now.  The performance measurement program has several benefits.

• First, performance measurement helps the City to know if it is using its resources efficiently and effectively.  By comparing Urbandale's performance on a number of key indicators to the performance of other comparable cities, City officials can have a better understanding of how resources are being used.
   
• Second, performance measurement helps the City Council to make decisions on resource allocations. 
   
• Third, performance measurement helps the City focus its resources in areas where performance is below standards.

The performance measurement program has three components.

• First, Urbandale is a member of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Center for Performance Measurement (CPM).   The Center serves a performance measurement facilitator for 200 cities from around North America.  These cities collect performance data on literally hundreds of activities and the CPM prepares comparison reports that show how each city compares to the other cities on each of the measures.
  • ICMA-CPM Data Report which includes data submitted by Urbandale.
  • 2005 (Most current year available)
    • Table of Contents (PDF, 179KB)
    • Introduction (PDF, 240KB)
    • Comparative Performance Information (PDF, 219KB)
    • Code Enforcement (PDF, 386KB)
    • Facilities Management (PDF, 620KB)
    • Fire & EMS (PDF, 810KB)
    • Fleet Management (PDF, 570KB)
    • Highways & Roadway Maintenance (PDF, 420KB)
    • Housing (PDF, 320KB)
    • Human Resources (PDF, 391KB)
    • Information Technology (PDF, 455KB)
    • Library Services (PDF, 1.05MB)
    • Parks & Recreation (PDF, 426KB)
    • Police Services (PDF, 735KB)
    • Purchasing (PDF, 427KB)
    • Refuse & Recycling (PDF, 449KB)
    • Risk Management (PDF, 523KB)
    • Youth Services (PDF, 661KB)
       
• Second, Urbandale is one of 9 cities in Iowa participating in the Iowa Citizen's Initiated Performance Assessment program.  Through this program the City is developing a number of performance measurement indicators from a citizen's perspective.
   
• Third, the City conducts a biennial Citizen Survey to assess residents opinions about a variety of topics.