Best Practices

At Wednesday’s (Jan. 14) workshop meeting between the consultants, committee and members of the City of DeKalb administrative staff we selected nearby cities for regional budget comparisons. The regional “likewise” cities selected were Downer’s Grove, Normal, Moline and Carbondale.

“Best practices” was also selected for budget comparison and analysis for potential improved cost/performance efficiencies. The Best Practices survey will not be tied to a specific region but instead will focus more on tried alternative approaches to providing quality services.

I have little more than superficial knowledge on Best Practices so I’m doing The Google on it. I’m sure y’all bloggers can fill us in. I do think there is more potential in Best Practices than regional comparisons even those of comparable college towns.

DeKalb is unique in a lot of ways.

Many city governments have parks and recreation as a department, for example. Many more handle sanitary and/or waste management as internal departments. DeKalb has a Park District and a Sanitary District as separate entities from the City of DeKalb so its overall and general fund budgets are always significantly less of likewise cities.

In all regional likewise city studies I’ve seen DeKalb always has substantially lower EAV than all other cities. I don’t know why.

From Wikipedia:

Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications. Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people.