City audit finds lag in efforts to measure affordability, economic opportunity in Austin

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — In March 2018, the City of Austin adopted its Strategic Direction 2023 (SD23) plan, a five-year initiative to find and determine "advance equitable outcomes across Austin."

Economic Opportunity and Affordability (EOA) is one of six areas incorporated into the SD23 plan. The premise for the EOA component focused on "having economic opportunities and resources that enable us to thrive in our community."

Performances were measured and lumped into six categories:

• Employment
• Income equality
• Cost of living compared to income
• Housing
• Skills and capability of our community workforce
• Economic mobility

Here are the areas where the audit found the city lagged in its efforts to measure and document progress in economic opportunities and affordability:

Finding 1: COA didn't "effectively create and use performance measures as tools" to ensure Economic Opportunity and Affordability outcome progress

The first finding from the city's affordability audit determined the City of Austin didn't create measures that could effectively track and ensure progress on its economic opportunity and affordability outcomes.

Specifically, the audit found more than half of EOA performance measures were classified as "community indicators," or broader and less specific community statistics that don't measure performance as accurately. Many of those measures weren't found to have specific targets, and timeliness lags in reported data were recorded.

"Lastly, while SD23 mentions a commitment to measuring equity, less than a quarter of EOA performance measures can be segmented by key equity-related characteristics to understand progress through an equity lens," the report read. "Taken together, these issues limit the ability of the City to use the performance measures to measure and report on progress toward the EOA outcome."

The audit found 83% of comments submitted on performance measure effectiveness were negative, with department staff surveyed saying they wanted to "use performance measures that were more reflective of their work and areas where the City can make a tangible, measurable impact."

“Community indicators belong in another report, they could be referenced as a part of strategic direction, but they are confusing to the public because we cannot allocate more resources to “move the needle” on them. It makes us look bad and erodes public trust as this is seen as a report card by many. We need to focus on fewer indicators, not clutter it with more.”

Comment included in SD23 audit

Due to the broader, less refined nature of community indicators, the audit found 49% of all EOA strategic performance measures for fiscal year 2020-21 didn't have a target affiliated with it. That lack of target made it difficult for some of these measures to be as effective.

The SD23 audit also found that approximately 25% of performance measures were intended to measure equity impacts, but more than half of the equity measures lacked data to see if efforts advanced equitable outcomes.

The SD23 document states that “to advance equitable outcomes, the City of Austin is leading with a lens of racial equity and healing. Race is the primary predictor of outcomes, and it is time to recognize, understand, and address racism at its various levels: personal, institutional, structural, and systemic.”
As described in the City’s adaptive philosophy above, it is important to be able to break down performance measures by race/ethnicity to observe performance across different racial groups in order to understand how equitably progress is being made. Despite this, only 23%, or 8 of the 35
total EOA measures, include information.

SD23 audit

Finding 2: Austin's delay in implementing and lack of formal monitoring of SD23 "limited its ability to assess and report progress" with its EOA outcome

Despite Austin City Council adopting the SD23 strategic plan in March 2018, it took the city two years to begin developing a performance dashboard, and an additional half year to implement it.

With the dashboard delayed, "the associated performance measures that were adopted at the same time as the plan itself were not available to be reviewed." That hindered the city's ability to evaluate the plan's progress and possibly change course or strategy, the audit found.

"We found that the City has not formally presented performance measure updates and plan progress on a regular basis," the report noted. "The only formal monitoring meeting held throughout the 2018-2023 life of the SD23 plan was a work session with City Council on October 28, 2021. There are no additional progress check-in meetings scheduled for SD23."

What recommendations did the audit suggest, based on report findings?

Three recommendations were made at the end of the report:

• Discontinue the use of community indicator measures to "ensure all measures are within the City's span of control"
• Use a limited number of performance measures that follow best practice guidance, the City of Austin's chief financial officer should work to:
  • Design clear, quantifiable targets for all performance measures
  • Design all performance measures in ways that they can be updated regularly throughout the length of the strategic plan
  • Increase the volume of strategic performance measures that can be "disaggregated by equity-related characteristics or can otherwise be segmented to view progress on strategic outcomes through an equity lens"
  • Maintain performance dashboards with measures updated at regular intervals to make sure the public, city leaders can access recent data
  • Follow best practice recommendations when using third-party sources, like the U.S. Census Bureau, when using that information to report performance measures
• City of Austin's CFO should develop plan to "periodically review and report the City's progress on strategic plan outcomes to City stakeholders and the public"

The first two bullets above are set to be implemented in December, with the final one set to go into effect in June 2024.