Carson City launches five-year strategic planning cycle, opens public survey

For the record, my name is Stephanie Hicks, and I'm the deputy city manager for Carson City, Hicks said as she opened the presentation on the city's strategic plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2031. Hicks said the prior plan (adopted September 2021) produced roughly 136 tactics and emphasized that the new plan will be a shorter, prioritized roadmap tied directly to budgets and performance reporting.

James Salanoa, the citys community relations manager, described how staff will present annual results and make the plan transparent to residents. Salanoa said the 2025 annual review showed 112 of 126 tactics were on schedule, and that staff had designed annual reports to be accessible to people who had not followed the plan from the start.

Executive office manager Alexis Philippi announced a public survey that launched at 8 a.m. in English and Spanish and will remain open through March 23; she listed four outreach sessions, including a March 12 community-center evening session and a March 18 Chamber Coffee event. Philippi said the survey is short (about 20 questions), includes demographic items and a "$100 to allocate across six strategic goals" exercise, and that staff will accept paper or emailed responses for those without internet access.

Hicks and staff said the planning team intends to align the new strategic plan with the citys budget process so that proposed tactics can be budgeted and tracked annually. Staff asked supervisors and the public for feedback on proposed vision language and on whether the city should refresh mission statements or retain existing wording. The board expressed general support for aligning the plan with budget priorities and for public outreach.

Next steps: staff will collect survey responses and department input, draft tactics and performance measures, and return to the board with proposals and an implementation schedule.