Business Finance – Management Assignment 8: Village of Typical, New York – Summer Street Maintenance Service Performance Management

This case builds on the Village of Typical cost analysis case completed earlier in the semester.  This exercise focuses on the development of performance measures and management for summer street maintenance.  

The village manager wants to begin the process of managing with the regular collection and analysis of performance information. As a part of this effort, she wants to look closely at one component of street services, summer street maintenance.  Summer street maintenance includes the following activities– cleaning, patching, repairing, repaving, and rebuilding streets in the village.   This is one of several services that the manager wants to begin developing regular performance information for and to begin using this information to assess performance and options for change.  You are the Deputy Village Manager and have been asked to (1) develop performance measures, (2)  plan for data collection of the needed performance information, and (3)  plan for using the performance information to help manage summer street maintenance service in the coming years.  

Current Village of Typical Summer Street Maintenance Activities.  This service component does not include other related streetscape services like sidewalk repair, street tree care, and replacement, etc.  The village currently provides the following street maintenance services:

• Repaves one mile per year on average.  Most recently, the village has accomplished this by contracting for a portion of the paving work.   The village has contracted out the use of a paver and paver operator to both private vendors and most recently the Town of Typical highway department – the Town of Typical surrounds the Village.  The village supplies trucks and truck drivers for hauling asphalt and for laborers to assist in the paving operation. 
• Provides pothole repair as needed both temporary in the spring and more permanent repair in the summer.
• Cleans street catch basins as needed.

Options for change.  Pavement life varies, but on average pavement life is between 8 and 15 years before a street needs to be repaved and provide a safe drivable road surface.  If there is a decline in the quality of street surfaces the local government may need to increase funding to accomplish more street repair and paving or it may need to improve the paving methods or approach used on village streets. This may require changing methods or adding better engineering guidance.   In this case another option to consider may be to change paving contractors.

Resources for Developing Your Plan

• A revised Excel spreadsheet for the Village of Typical, New York includes four years of expenditures for summer street maintenance.  For each of the last four years, total and per mile annual summer street maintenance costs are calculated by estimating the costs for this service from the overall bundle of street maintenance service costs. The first tab in the Excel workbook named “Summer Street Maintenance,” contains these summer street maintenance costs.    The second tab named, “Village Street” contains the information developed earlier in the semester for all street service-related costs.   The third tab named “Clerk-Treasurer” demonstrates one method for allocating an indirect cost, clerk-treasurer administrative support costs, in calculating the full cost of a service.  The fourth tab labeled “Expenditure Definitions” provides a brief description of the expenditure categories in the Excel table.  Recall that the village has ten miles of streets.
• In addition, the Village of Typical’s county highway department has provided an analysis of road conditions in the Village (see Village of Typical PMI Report – read the first 5 pages carefully and at least skim the balance of the report).   The county provides this analysis as a service to all the local governments within its borders.  The analysis is based on direct observation and data collection for each street segment within the village.   Based on a summary of the condition data, each segment is assigned a pavement condition index (PCI) –see the third and fourth pages. On the fifth page of the document, these individual road ratings are summarized and analyzed.    There are bar charts that show the distribution of village roads by PCI and the computation of an overall index.   The county re-evaluates all streets and roads in the county every two years and makes a report and relevant data on local streets available to each local government in the county.
• Some other measures used by communities for summer street maintenance: (note -paved lane miles are equivalent to 2 times the miles of street in the Village of Typical).
  • Expenditures on road rehabilitation per paved lane mile
  • Paved lane miles 
  • Paved lane miles for which the jurisdiction is responsible 
  • Paved Lane Miles Assessed as Satisfactory as a Percentage of Miles Assessed
  • Citizen service satisfaction

Also see – Asphalt Maintenance and Repair Village of Hickory (pages 12-14) in  Benchmarking for Results.  Rivenbark, Ammons and Roenigk (2005).

Your Assignment:  recall from above:  You have been asked to (1) develop performance measures, (2)  plan for data collection of the needed performance information, and (3) plan for using the performance information to help manage summer street maintenance service in the future.  In developing your performance measures and management plan for summer street maintenance services follow the guidance below.  Provide the requested information in memo format addressed to the village manager.  Where relevant and valuable cite the course readings as you write up this assignment. Submit your final memorandum via Brightspace for this assignment. 

The Village of Typical service objective (public works infrastructure objective for village streets):  The Village of Typical seeks to maintain village infrastructure to efficiently serve the public health and safety needs of village residents and community visitors.  With respect to Street Infrastructure:  Public street surfaces should be safe, drivable, and satisfactory to street users.

1. Performance measures.  Identify and define each of your performance measures by category below: 
   1. Output (workload),
   2. Efficiency measures, and
   3. Outcome (effectiveness) measures

For each measure, identify the beginning measurement (if a starting measurement is available to you).  Stated differently, identify an existing baseline figure that you are starting from.  Also, note your data sources – where performance measures will come from (if you have identified a source).

Having two or more measures for efficiency and outcome is valuable if they can be identified. 

1. Performance management plan.  In your plan identify the following kinds of planning points.
   1. Timing and sequence for informing and working with the village governing board regarding your plan.
   2. Timing and sequence for informing and working with the Village Street foreman regarding your plan.
   3. Indicate how frequently you will report on each of your performance measures.
   4. Indicate what changes in measures/indicators you will look at (increases, decreases, etc.), what changes (increases, decreases, etc.) in measures/indicators might raise concerns, and what kinds of changes would be considered favorable.
   5. If needed, indicate what additional information you will need to collect to complete your plan.
   6. Suggest at least two important criteria in selecting other local governments to compare your performance information with.  The criteria can be about the local government or the information/indicators that you would be comparing.

 Please use a copy of the table below or make one like it to organize your measures information as a part of your response.  You may not have the information you need for each table cell, just indicate that.  For example, if you are uncertain where you will find data (from the village or other sources) for a particular measure- just indicate that. Feel free to change the size of your table, etc. to meet your needs, but use this general framework.