Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
San Jose unveils sharper “FOCUS” performance framework, ties budget to measurable goals
Summary
City staff presented a revised “FOCUS” model that links five council priorities — including homelessness, public safety and housing — to near‑term goals, dashboards and monthly learning cycles. Council directed staff to continue work and to bring updates into committee and budget timelines.
On Sept. 30 the San Jose City Council heard a semiannual status report on the city’s five FOCUS priority areas, as staff unveiled “Focus Area 2,” a retooled performance model intended to bind strategy, budget and measurable outcomes.
City Manager Jennifer McGuire told the council the revised approach sharpens the city’s attention on results and on learning in public. “Today, I am very proud to present to you all a very a much stronger and more effective model for how we manage and show progress and results on the city council’s 5 focus areas,” McGuire said during the presentation.
The new model, developed with the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, replaces a program‑tracking scorecard with a logic‑model framework that ties long‑term goals to nearer‑term “success measures” and to specific change initiatives. Dr. Shannon Arviso, who advised on the redesign, said the technical challenge is as much cultural as technical: “The hard part is not creating the systems. The hard part is creating the culture that uses them.”
Staff described how the structure will be applied to each FOCUS area: increasing community safety; reducing unsheltered homelessness; cleaning up neighborhoods; growing the economy; and building…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
