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Des Moines city manager outlines strategic priorities after wide public engagement
Summary
City Manager Catherine Caffrey told the Des Moines Citizens Advisory Board that more than 1,000 survey responses and other outreach informed six strategic priorities — led by financial stability and economic vitality — and that a draft strategic plan will be presented to council on May 7 before a May–June adoption.
Catherine Caffrey, Des Moines city manager, presented a strategic-plan update to the Citizens Advisory Board at its March 25 meeting, saying the city received "over 1,000 surveys" and combined that feedback with focus groups, town halls and council and staff interviews to identify six priorities for the next three to five years.
The priorities, Caffrey said, are financial stability, economic vitality, public safety, a connected and engaged community, the natural and built environment, and organizational excellence. "If we can get those two things right — financial stability and economic vitality — they really are transformational for this community," she told the board.
Caffrey described an extensive outreach effort that included pop-up events at the holiday market and food bank, multilingual survey cards distributed through Highline Schools, and a town hall. She acknowledged limits to the effort: the detailed stakeholder report she linked in a recent city-manager memo shows respondent demographics and, she said, ‘‘despite our very valiant effort ... we did not receive a single survey that was not in English.’’
On capacity, Caffrey warned the board that staff are "very lean." She said routine operations — potholes, mowing, calls for service — consume the majority of staff time. "We spend 85% of our time on just filling potholes, responding to calls for service, mowing the right of way," she said, adding that a small group of department heads and senior staff will have to carry much of the work to advance new initiatives.
Board members asked whether the survey sample reflected the community. Mackenzie Myers, a business-representative member, said she wondered whether responses skewed toward longtime, English-speaking participants. Caffrey said the linked report breaks down demographics and that staff attempted non-English outreach, but no translated surveys were returned.
Caffrey said staff will meet to define specific initiatives that implement the strategic priorities, and that she will present a draft of the plan to the city council on May 7 for feedback; the plan is expected to return for adoption in May or June. The priorities will be used to frame the 2027–28 budget process and guide department workplans.
