Quote Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch View Post
Benchmarks are crucial. But an Emergency FINANCIAL Manager should have FINANCIAL benchmarks.

I do not think an EFM or CA should address performance -- beyond financial matters.

The benchmarks ought to be more like 'at the end of fiscal 2012, the city shall have a total labor expense of $23 million, down from $33 million today'.

Streetlights, Firefighter productivity, etc. all remains the council and mayor's work. And freed from the financial burden, they can focus on these critical tasks.
Agree and disagree. You can't call it a success if there is a massive degradation of all services. Perhaps having benchmarks of expected levels of service. I can get the financial ship in order tomorrow if I fire every cop and firefighter but I sure as hell wouldn't quantify that as a success.

I think there should be financial metrics and minimum service level metrics to ensure that the citizens are getting a reasonable level of service. But then again the Governor and those that will monitor the consent agreement and finances don't really care about any level of service as long as the finances are addressed.