Cobb County presents interactive strategic-plan dashboard; public rollout, quarterly updates planned

Cobb County staff on July 22 demonstrated a new Strategic Plan Management System and interactive dashboard intended to show progress on the county's five-year strategic plan, how projects align to budget decisions and strategic goals, and where county efforts sit by commission district. Kimberly, the county's ITS director, introduced the system and turned the presentation over to Yolanda Rucker and others who guided commissioners through the dashboard features.

The dashboard, staff said, is built on a four-level plan structure the board approved at the top three levels and that staff have expanded into more than 450 action items aligned to eight strategic outcome areas and roughly 30 key success indicators. "The County Strategic Plan is the roadmap that guides our efforts to achieve our community's goals and priorities," Kimberly said, and the dashboard is intended to be "a transparent and interactive platform, allowing us to track our progress, identify areas for improvement, and make data driven decisions."

County staff showed commissioners several features intended for internal oversight and eventual public viewing: status pie charts that reflect staff-entered completion and on-track indicators, a system-calculated indicator for past-due items (staff reported none at the time of the presentation), quarterly-update tracking that flags late submissions, and district overlays that let users see which action items are aligned to each commission district. "You can drill down into any of these pie charts," Yolanda Rucker said, showing how users could click a slice for details on items that are not started or are in progress.

The platform integrates GIS mapping and other county data sources. Rucker displayed a Community Development view that overlays permits and inspections with strategic-plan items and a mobility map that includes county-implemented electric-vehicle charging stations and commission-district boundaries. "This particular map is a map of the EV charging stations that have been implemented by the county," she said, adding staff are working to include privately provided charging stations so the dashboard can show both public- and private-sector infrastructure.

Finance staff described how the strategic plan will be tied to budget reporting. Bill Volkman (staff), who presented the financial-sustainability portion, said the county began aligning budget requests to the strategic plan in the 2025 budget, required alignment for new 2026 requests, and plans to make alignment more public by 2027. He said staff will provide a post-adoption summary showing where dollars — including a noted $48,000,000 allocation referenced in the presentation — were applied and how they map to the plan's priorities. "Following budget adoption, one of the things we're going to do is provide you a high level summary. Where did the dollars go?" Volkman said.

Volkman told commissioners the county retains a stable AAA credit rating from major credit agencies and that finance staff will provide a biannual financial update beginning in September. He also described work to review revenue sources and fees countywide, beginning as part of the 2027 budget cycle, and said the county's grants division has expanded from one to four positions (three filled) to research, apply for and manage grants for county departments.

Commissioners asked about public access and rollout timing. Chairwoman Fishers thanked staff for outreach and asked when portions of the dashboard would be made public. Kimberly said staff will develop a rollout plan and timeline after the board presentation and that they intend to publish the dashboard on the county website. "We are gonna discuss the timeline," Kimberly said. "We wanted to have the presentation today to present it formally to the board, making sure that everyone is comfortable with what we're gonna show to the public, and we will develop a rollout plan and a timeline for that."

On governance and upkeep, staff explained the system will prompt quarterly updates from contributors and will allow items to be marked complete, canceled, or carried forward; Rucker noted action-item updates are summarized at the strategy level and that all three action items attached to the governance strategy were assigned to her. Commissioners and staff discussed how ad hoc priorities — for example, an item that emerges from a commissioner question about overtime or other operational concerns — would be incorporated through the county manager's office and ITS and either added as new action items or used to modify existing ones.

No formal board action on the dashboard was recorded in the work session. Staff said commissioners would receive a link to the live system the following week and that quarterly update requests would begin thereafter; finance staff said the first biannual financial update would be presented in September. The agenda for the board's evening meeting that day included a separate millage and budget vote; the work session presentation did not record outcomes of those evening votes.

The presentation emphasized staff accountability features (automated email prompts, the ability to update action items directly from notification messages, and a historical record of quarter-to-quarter updates), the dashboard's flexibility to add or cancel action items, and plans for further refinement through meetings and a September work session on financial items.

Commissioners and staff agreed to follow up with additional demonstrations and one-on-one walkthroughs for commissioners and their assistants once the live system link is distributed. Staff also offered to return with more frequent updates if the board requests them outside the planned twice-yearly financial reports and the quarterly strategic-plan update cadence.