Waddell Holmes, Tempe's Strategic Management and Innovation director, introduced the START performance-led budgeting tool and the TAP (Targeted Acceleration Program) used to move performance measures forward. Holmes said the city's index contains 101 performance measures and described recent methodology updates intended to better align benchmarks and targets.

"This is an opportunity for you all to provide early direction to us as staff," Holmes said, describing START as a prioritization exercise rather than an allocation of new dollars. He explained each council member will receive 100 "points" to distribute across performance measures (with a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30 points per measure), and that council distributions will inform capital and operating strategy work leading into the December budget cycle.

Holmes described TAP as a biweekly data-driven, facilitated process that focuses staff and strategy partners on accelerated measures and organizational behaviors such as accountability and succession planning. He highlighted five accelerated performance measures for 2025-26, including ending homelessness trends and housing inventory measures that will be integrated into a household economic stability index.

Staff plans to release START to the council the afternoon after the meeting and return with aggregated results at the December 11 work study session. Holmes said the office will provide dashboards, training and follow-up to departments on business respondent contacts from the survey.