Testimony Before Senate Subcommittee on Government Efficiency
July 24, 2008
Chairman Carper: Our lead-off witness, again, as we know, is Governor Martin O’Malley, who was elected Governor of Maryland in 2006, coming on the heels of a hugely successful tenure as Mayor of the City of Baltimore. And early in his life as a young -- as a young troubadour, he led his Irish group into the City of Wilmington and left the fans of O’Friel’s Irish Pub standing and cheering in his wake, in an age when he was actually too young to get in legally to O’Friel’s but came in and did a great job performing for us.
In 2005, to sort of segue from there, pivoting from that, in 2005 Time magazine named him one of America’s top five big city mayors. As Mayor, he pioneered the CitiStat program, a statistics based tracking system that focuses in on areas of under performance, and demands a results-driven government model.
CitiStat has saved Baltimore residents more than $350 million and was awarded Harvard University’s prestigious Innovations In American Government Award in 2004.
As Governor, he has brought the program State-wide, implementing StateStat across all of Maryland’s Government services. And it has provided a model for -- not just for mayors, not just for governors, but I think maybe for presidents and for those of us who serve here in the Legislative Branch of our government.
We’re honored by your presence and we are especially honored to be able to serve you on a daily basis with your mother, who works -- as some of the people here know -- works for Senator Mikulski. I’m not sure who works for whom. I don’t know if Senator Mikulski is actually here, she was going to try to stop by today, but she may pop in. But if your mother is around or if she shows up, please introduce her to us. We’re delighted that you’re here and that your mom raised you so well.
Governor O’Malley, you are recognized to speak for as long as you wish.
Governor O’Malley: Chairman Carper, thank you very, very much. Thank you for the opportunity to be able to join you at this important committee and as part of the discussion of this day.
I’m also joined by a number of members of my staff, apropos to today’s discussion, Mr. Matt Gallagher is here, who runs our StateStat office and is the Deputy Chief of Staff for operations in our State Government.
Chairman Carper: Will you ask him to raise his hand?
Governor O’Malley: There he is.
Chairman Carper: All right.
Governor O’Malley: And he also before that ran the CitiStat office in the City of Baltimore.
It is an honor to be here today before you to talk about an issue that, frankly, I believe is changing for the better, the way that many of us look at the operations of our government, and it is our government.
It’s our belief that the same performance based governing strategies that were so very valuable in igniting Baltimore’s come-back, and have been so valuable to us at the Stare level in Maryland this past year and-a-half, can also work not only in the Federal Government, but in any large human organization.
In our public life, we tend to be very, very good at measuring inputs. We typically refer to those inputs as the budget and it is typically done on an annual basis. But we have often neglected to pay enough attention to outputs, to the product of government.
We’re constantly asking what’s our funding level, for example, for something like inter-operable communications, without asking whether or not the purchases that have been made by local, municipal, or State governments this year have been in accordance with the standard that moves us down the road to a point in time when all first responders throughout our nation can actually talk with one another when responding to an emergency.
Performance based government, in its essence, is about measuring, tracking and improving outputs. Inputs play a role, but only in the pursuit of outputs.
Mr. Chairman, I was first introduced to this model of governing about eight and-a-half years ago when I began my first term as Mayor of the City of Baltimore. And when we were handed the keys to that 16,000 person, $2 billion a year operation known as city government, we inherited our fair share of challenges. Some of them very, very big challenges.
More than 300 of our fellow citizens every year were being murdered in our city, the streets were too often littered with trash, our schools were too often failing, and people were abandoning our city, in essence voting with their feet, and leaving behind them buildings and homes that were vacant and themselves becoming nuisances.
Quite understandably, the public at the time was demanding immediate results and immediate turn-around. And we rolled up our sleeves and got to work and found, in beginning that work, that there was very little in city government that was actually being measured in a consistent and real time fashion.
Now, don’t get me wrong, oftentimes information was being collected at the ground level; sometimes very faithfully, sometimes very dutifully, not always the right information. But rarely, if ever, was it being used in a timely manner by the appropriators and the policy makers and the administrators at the highest level, in order to deliver better outputs and better outcomes for citizens on the ground.
So we were very blessed, I met a gentleman by the name of Jack Maple, who was one of the great minds behind the performance based strategies employed in the New York City Police Department for their turn-around. Jack was a Deputy Commissioner of Police under Commissioner Bratton.
And we felt, having observed ComStat in action, that if the NYPD could so successfully use simple off the shelf software, computer pin mapping, deploying police resources to where the crime was actually happening, that data collection and mapping technology could also work for the other things the government does, whether it’s garbage collection or repairing street lights or addressing complaints about potholes.
And from this approach was expropriated the four main tenants of CitiStat, which were the main tenants of ComStat. Number one, timely, accurate information shared by all; number two, rapid deployment of resources; number three, effective tactics and strategies; and number four, relentless follow-up. Not on an annual basis, not on a bi-annual basis, but on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly basis, in order to improve performance.
So we started setting goals. We started measuring results and we did so weekly. We began tracking outputs instead of just tracking inputs and we started geomapping every conceivable service.
And in short time, we turned around a city where many neighborhoods were considered ungovernable, and we started making our city government function again in order to improve the quality of life in every neighborhood.
I go into some greater detail about some of the results we achieved in a written statement I submitted to the committee, but just a few examples.
Most important of all is the primary responsibility of all government and that is public safety. We were able to achieve a 40 percent reduction in violent crime, its lowest level actually in four decades.
We were able to back up with 98 percent success a 48-hour guarantee to address complaints from citizens about potholes.
We reduced the number of children exposed to dangerously high levels of lead from lead dust, lead paint poisoning, from homes, old homes and deteriorating homes by 65 percent in a relatively short period of time.
We were able to identify and reclaim by clearing title more than 5,900 vacant homes and buildings, which then enables them to be redeveloped, put back on the tax rolls.
We had a boarding and cleaning backlog of about some eight months is how long it took when we began to address a boarding or cleaning complaint from any citizen. By the time we left, that was down to 14 days. Now, that didn’t happen overnight, it didn’t happen by measuring things annually. It happened by measuring them every single day and every week.
And probably the most important outcome of all is that we were able, by improving our quality of life with better performing government, to be able to reduce four decades of what had been seemingly insurmountable population loss and the city started growing again.
I brought two charts with us today; one of them is -- on the far right is the combination of homicides and shootings. And you see sort of three kidneys of death. And you can see them over time -- again, these are just measured annually, but we measured every two weeks and, by golly, when you look over your shoulder, you see you’re actually making progress, shrinking those danger zones in our city.
This next map is the cleaning and boarding, measured not in terms of the reduction of the wait time, but in terms of the improvement of the productivity.
Again, these are annual outcomes, but the only way we were able to achieve the annual outcomes is because we developed systems so that we could measure every day, every week and that that information then was able to get back up to the policy makers, the administrators, the appropriators.
In 2007, when we were given the keys to an even larger organization, namely the State government of the great people of Maryland, we took this model with us, we created a program called StateStat, which has allowed us to track and measure progress on a level that we have never before been able to achieve in our State government.
And through our StateStat program, while only in its first year and-a-half, we have been able to identify problems and information sharing among various law enforcement agencies and across several jurisdictions and we work every day to improve them.
Secondly, we were able to identify right off the bat the imperative, the need to close the House of Corrections, an old, dilapidated and very, very dangerous prison in our State. We were able to close that, without incident, within 50 days, saving probably lives and also saving $3 million in overhead and overtime.
We were also able to identify more than a hundred problems within our juvenile detention facilities, many of which had been under various consent decrees and court orders for a long, long time, without ever improving those conditions.
We are now using GPS technology and performance measures to target our resources that are geared at restoring the national treasure which is the Chesapeake Bay, through a program that we call BayStat.
You may notice that virtually anything, if you measure it, you can slap a Astat@ on the end of it and you have a new way of seeing whether what you’re doing is making any impact on the problem you’re trying to solve.
We go through again a few more accomplishments in the written statements I’ve submitted to you, but I wanted to close by just saying a couple of words about CitiStat, StateStat and why this model, I believe, can be and should be applied at the Federal level, particularly in the realm of Homeland Security.
We believe the same approach can be relevant to governments and organizations anywhere and of any size.
Recently I had occasion to meet and to listen to Sir Michael Barber from Tony Blair’s government, who applied many of these same principles to the administration of national government in the United Kingdom. And also implemented a new innovation called the Delivery Unit, to make sure that all of those along the chain of delivery -- from policymaker to appropriator to administrator to implementer, down to the level of citizen -- were actually held accountable for their piece of delivering improved performance.
The Environmental Protection Agency, I understand, has launched an EPAStat program and there are governments worldwide that are working to implement this model. In fact, we’ve had several delegations from governments all over the world who have come to visit us in Maryland to learn about the workings, the early workings, of our program of State-wide performance measurement.
Government performance management, I believe is really a nonpartisan issue. I mean, there’s no Democratic or Republican way to fill a pothole, to make sure that you improve the outcomes, whether it’s a municipal, State or national government.
The beauty of the map is that a map doesn’t know whether a neighborhood is black or white or whether a neighborhood is rich or poor, or whether a neighborhood is Democrat or Republican. Most of us in government would say that is the responsibility of every public official to provide the most effective government possible and to provide for continued progress and improvement. That’s what CitiStat and that’s what StateStat are really about.
Mr. Chairman, I wanted to close today with words of Robert Kennedy who once said, AThere is no basic inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities. No separation between the deepest desires of the heart and of the mind, and the rational application of human effort to human problem. The rational application, well and timely measured, of human effort to human problems..
That’s what performance based government is about. And I thank you so very, very much for your interest and your leadership in bringing this to our Federal government.
Thanks very much.
Chairman Carper: Governor, thank you very, very much. One of my fondest memories of being Governor was going to New Governor School. Every two years, right after the election, even numbered years, about the middle of November, the Governors -- existing Governors, current Governors -- would host the newly elected Governors and spouses and sort of teach the new Governors and spouses, by virtue of our own experience, the things we’d done wrong -- in many cases. And maybe in some respects, the things we’d done right.
But we had a Center For Best Practices within the National Governor’s Association, I suspect we still do, and I’m just wondering, does your experience with CitiStat and what you’re doing with StateStat, does any of that show up within the National Governor’s Association? Either at a New Governor’s School like forum or through the Center for Best Practices, so that other States can learn from what you’ve done both in Baltimore and in Maryland?
Governor O’Malley: Yes. To some degree other States have begun this in one way, shape or form. And some of them started doing it years ago, on the heels of seeing the success of the NYPD. In fact, Christine Gregoire, who began her first term as Mayor (sic) of Washington State, visited us actually before all the votes were totally counted in that close race --
Chairman Carper: I told this about Christine, as some of you may recall, she was not, I think, ultimately elected until about a month or so -- a month and-a-half after the election -- I said to Christine, I said, Keep counting the votes and recounting the votes until you win, then stop. And that’s what they did.
Governor O’Malley: Well, during that, shall we call it a period of pre-transition, she sent a group of her people to Baltimore and has actually begun and does have a performance measurement program begun in Washington State.
I know I’ve had conversations with Kathleen Sebelius in Kansas and back at the time when I believe she applied it to some things as well.
We were -- it is, I believe, part of the National Governor’s Association, part of their Office of Best Practices and we were able to recruit from there -- not only Malcolm Wolf, our Energy Administrator, with whom you had some discussions, but also our policy director is from that area.
The best ideas, you know, are the ones that you find from other practitioners. That’s what we believe. And one of the exciting things about beginning this program in Baltimore years ago is that other cities have taken it up and I found myself learning from things that Mayor Cicilline in Providence was doing to apply this to juvenile justice, to be able to learn from Mayor Slay in St. Louis, the things he was doing on lead paint abatement and the like.
So I hope and I believe that there will be more of this going on at the State level that we can learn from.
Chairman Carper: In Baltimore I presume this initiative was something that you promoted as Mayor and as Governor, I presume that this is an approach that you’ve been championing in your State.
Governor O’Malley: Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things I’ve noticed, Senator, is that newly elected executives tend to have an easier time embracing this than those of us who have been in office for some time.
The very uncomfortable part of this process is that when you begin measuring things that have never been measured before, and start sharing that information widely and broadly, everyone comes to understand how poorly many things have been functioning in the past.
The fresh start of a new executive is, I think, something that enables an organization to make that sort of culture shift in ways that others find more difficult.
It’s also been my experience that however uncomfortable that initial period is of the openness and the transparency, which are the hallmarks I think of performance measurement -- in a republican form of government, certainly -- that openness and transparency over time pays tremendous dividends, however embarrassing the up-front moments are of, oh, my goodness, I didn’t know that we were that bad at that particular service delivery. Over time, people come to respect and appreciate.
Another innovation that we borrowed from Mayor Richard Daly in Chicago was the use of the 311 center for all City services. In the past, you know, we would go around knocking on doors at campaign time and giving out the Where To Call For Help card. The Where To Call For Help card had some, you know, 300 various services listed alphabetically -- you know, look under V for vacant houses, look under R for rat abatement. And then we’d have 300 different phone numbers.
But the 311 system on the front end and being able to have a call courteously answered and give every citizen, regardless of what neighborhood that, you know, the call came from -- being able to give them a customer service number that was common to all citizens and a timeframe within which to expect that service, whether it was a broken curb, a pothole, a dead tree or what have you, the timeframe within which to expect that service to be delivered was something that gave our citizens a lot of optimism about the future and the fact that they still do, in fact, have the reins of controlling and holding accountable that government into which they pay their hard-earned dollars.
Chairman Carper: Well, you’re going to have a whole crop of new Governors being elected this November and a couple weeks after that, they’re going to show up at the NGA School for new governors and spouses and they’re going to be looking for things, ways to provide good services working within the constraints of tight budgets, as you know. And I suspect that you could provide a little service for them, as you are here today, in sharing your successes in Baltimore and in Maryland.
And actually, taking time or taking good ideas, we used to steal ideas as Governor, steal the best ideas from one another. Sometimes attribute, sometimes not. But we’ve taken the idea of New Governors School and actually incorporated here in Washington, in the middle of November, two weeks after the election, we’ll have -- I call it New Senator School. But it’s actually -- it’s orientation for new senators and their spouses. Three days, pretty much like NGA, with your current senators and spouses and basically learn from one another.
Governor O’Malley: And I trust that they put former Governors at the front of the class?
Chairman Carper: Actually three of the people that started it were Lyle Alexander, former Governor, former NGA chair, Tennessee; George Voinovich, former Governor, former NGA chair; Mark Pryor has been very active, as Attorney General in his State of Arkansas; and Liz Pruitt. So three out of the four old Governors.
In Baltimore you obviously have a City council, legislative branch, Governor, you have a general assembly, legislative branch. Here we have the legislative branch in which I’m privileged to serve.
What role in City, State and maybe in the Federal government, in the national government, can a legislative branch play? How is this relevant in the eyes of the legislative branch in the City, State and in Washington?
Governor O’Malley: Initially, like many new ideas, it was greeted with a tremendous amount of skepticism and --
Chairman Carper: By your legislators?
Governor O’Malley: Yeah, let me talk first on the City Council and then I’ll talk at the State level.
In the City Council, the concern was that this was going to undermine or somehow diminish the ability of council members to deliver for the constituents who called them for a variety of City services.
And so over time we were able to overcome that, primarily because of the openness of and the transparency of the process. And also the ability of City Council staff to be able to log into the same system that our 311 operators were able to log into, in order to give out those citizen service complaints and the timeframe within which to expect that those services would be delivered.
And once the council staff were trained in it and they went back and worked on their council members, a lot of the fears dissipated. Because everybody wants to be able to produce, everybody wants to know that when their constituent calls that they’ll be able to pick up the phone and actually deliver.
On the State level we recently created a new fund for the restoration and the health of the Chesapeake Bay, a work that’s been going on for some time, work that needs to be accelerated and improved.
The tendency, I think, in most legislative bodies is to specifically designate any new dollars that are appropriated for a given purpose, namely the Chesapeake, clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay.
In a big public health challenge like the Chesapeake Bay there are probably at least, you know, a hundred different activities that could be funded, that contribute to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Everything from, you know, stormwater upgrades, to cover crops, to expanding buffer -- you know, forested buffer -- along streams.
The legislature, because of the openness, because of the transparency and because of the performance measurement that they saw in BayStat and their belief, their well-founded hope, I think, that the deployment of those dollars will be guided by the best science and the most effective use of those dollars, they chose, after some deliberation, not to specifically designate, you know, this first $2 million shall go to this, this next $3 million shall go here to that.
And so I think that legislators that have seen the beginning of this process are encouraged that they will be able to get more timely, accurate reports on the things that are working, the things that are not, which then will I think make them much more effective in exercising their oversight of the things that we do fund, the things that we maybe should fund more of, and the things that perhaps we should not be funding as much of.
