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Civil grand jury says City Services Auditor must expand benchmarking and fix data errors; Controller’s Office pushes SF OpenBook improvements
Summary
The grand jury found the City Services Auditor has benchmarked only a small number of departments and flagged a high error rate in the annual performance measures report; the Controller’s Office defended recent improvements and said it has added efficiency measures and transparency tools.
The Government Audit & Oversight Committee heard a civil grand jury report on Oct. 10 that urged the City Services Auditor (CSA) to expand benchmarking, improve data integrity and commit to a multiyear plan to meet Appendix F of the city charter.
Martha Mandel, foreperson of the 2012–2013 civil grand jury, said the jury focused on the CSA because Prop C (Appendix F of the City Charter) requires accessible performance and financial reporting. Jerry Drattler, who led the jury's analysis, summarized the findings: although the CSA’s annual performance measure report (APMR) contains about 1,000 measures, the jury found only two city departments had been benchmarked in the manner the jury expected and the CSA had an average departmental error rate of roughly 28% in recent audits. Drattler said "You can only manage what you measure," and recommended a formal multiyear commitment to benchmarking and reducing errors to a reasonable expectation of about 10%.
Peg Stevenson, Director of the Performance Group in the Controller's Office, acknowledged the jury's concerns but said the city has added efficiency measures and launched SF OpenBook, the online transparency tool that now reports departmental budget data and FTEs. Stevenson said the Controller's Office had added 28 efficiency measures across 16 large departments during the period under review, has a validation process for measures, and intends to continue issuing benchmarking reports and improving data interfaces.
Committee members pressed for a clear list of which departments have benchmarking data now and requested follow-up detail on the CSA's staffing and plans to reduce the APMR error rate. The committee voted to file the civil grand jury item and invited departments to return with multiyear action plans and clearer reporting on benchmarking and labor-efficiency measures.
The civil grand jury's report and the Controller’s response will be transmitted per committee practice; supervisors asked for scheduled follow-up to track implementation.
