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Council staff catalogues 81 required reports and asks whether publication of department reports should be centralized
Summary
Council policy staff said round two of the "Report of Reports" found about 81 required reports across city government, including 27 required of departments; 63% of those 27 have recent records of submission and staff recommended committee-level review to align reporting effort with council utility.
Maria Garnett, council policy analyst, presented Round 2 of the "Report of Reports" project to the Governmental Operations Standing Committee, summarizing efforts to inventory city reporting requirements and assess the level of effort departments expend to prepare required reports.
Garnett said staff catalogued approximately 81 required reports overall and identified 27 required of city departments (an increase from two in Round 1). Of those 27 department reports, 17 (63%) had a recent submission record available and 10 (37%) did not. Garnett emphasized that a missing record does not necessarily indicate noncompliance; some reports may not be applicable in a given year, or the information may have been submitted in formats that are harder to track.
Garnett described the review method: outreach to the Clerk's Office for boards and commissions processes, and coordination with deputy CAO portfolios to determine responsible offices, level of effort and recent submission status. She said most department reports require moderate-to-substantial effort and that several lacked institutional memory among staff in the responsible units.
Council staff framed three questions for the committee: whether publication of required department reports should be centralized (similar to the Clerk's public-facing listing for boards and commissions), how council's use of reports compares to the effort to prepare them, and which reports could be changed or removed to improve cost-effectiveness. Garnett proposed further committee-level review (beginning with finance) and outreach to non-government users of the reports; staff offered to deliver a Round 3 in writing or in committee by November with a deeper utility analysis on selected finance reports.
Administration policy advisor Adam Hull and committee members said the administration supports the review and urged collaboration to determine which ordinance-mandated reports should be resumed, revised or retired before restarting production. Hull noted some reporting requirements date back decades and recommended a conversation with council to define the desired future utility of each report before expending resources to restore them.
Committee members discussed centralization, historical context for reports and the need to ensure council as a whole has an opportunity to engage on reports'value even if ownership sits with committees. Staff recommended piloting further analysis with the finance committee and soliciting feedback from external report users if appropriate.
