Municipal Benchmarks: Assessing Local Performance and Establishing Community Standards

Providing an external context in which to examine local government performance, Municipal Benchmarks explores the design of practical performance measurement systems, the improvement of existing systems, and the establishment of local performance standards. Author David N. Ammons steps beyond the current literature on local government performance measurement by offering benchmarks against which an individual municipality′s performance may be assessed. This important volume guides municipal executives, department heads, management analysts, mayors and city council members, citizen groups, and interested individuals beyond the development of performance measures for city government operations. It prepares them for the initial stages of actual performance assessment by presenting relevant national standards developed by professional associations and actual performance targets and performance results from a sample of respected city governments. Municipal Benchmarks provides a comprehensive resource for professionals, academics, and students in the fields of public administration and urban studies. "The book is a tremendous contribution to the public management profession. David N. Ammons has included all of the salient service benchmarks that will finally give academicians and practitioners alike a reference document for assessing municipal functional performances. I hope that the information will be updated often." --Sylvester Murray, Director, Public Management Program and Associate Professor of Public Administration "I believe that the book makes a clear contribution to the field because of the vast research that the author has done to assemble the various measures from professional organizations and city governments. . . . Practitioners are hungry for this type of information because there is considerable pressure on them to accomplish more with less resources and to prove that they are doing so. . . . The result is a book that will serve as a resource guide for implementing a benchmarking program." --Douglas J. Watson, City Manager, Auburn, Alabama

David Ammons joined the School of Government (then the Institute of Government) in 1996. Prior to that, he was a faculty member at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia and taught in the public administration programs at Georgia and the University of North Texas. Early in his career he served on the staffs of four municipalities―Fort Worth, Texas; Hurst, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee―in various administrative capacities. Among his seven books on local governmentmanagement are Municipal Benchmarks: Assessing Local Performance and Establishing Community Standards (Sage Publications, 2001); Leading Performance Management in Local Government (ICMA, 2008); and Tools for Decision Making: A Practical Guide for Local Government (CQ Press, 2009). Ammons earned a Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma