CitiStat Program Is Sayonara

The so-called government efficiency program CitiStat started by former Mayor Bill Finch is history, a cost-cutting measure by Mayor Joe Ganim. From CT Post scribe Brian Lockhart:

The office answered to the Chief Administrative Officer, one of the mayor’s second-in-commands, who, ironically, is now John Gomes, the man who initially ran CitiStat for Finch before being fired.

Gomes went on to run for mayor in 2011, then this year became one of Ganim’s campaign advisers. Gomes was among the Ganim’s first political appointees upon being sworn in Dec. 1.

Av Harris, Ganim’s spokesman, said Friday evening that CitiStat was being shuttered to accomplish the goals it was set up to for–“streamlining city government and making things run more efficiently.”

“The work that was done by the CitiStat department will now be distributed to other departments to be completed,” Harris said. “The mayor believes that this will be a way to accomplish the same thing that CitiStat accomplished but in the more efficient and cost-effective way.”

Full story here.

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9 comments

  1. *** It was a politically made position just to pay back Finch election workers with the intentions of fooling the public into thinking the Finch admin was looking for city government fat to cut ($$$)! And a funded city line item to hide “pots of city gold money” for future use. Many useless political jobs were formed during the Finch Admin. for his cronies and families. Bill Finch; Mr. smile in your face and make promises not intended to be kept from a true professional politician, no? ***

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    1. I remember when this was first being introduced and Tom Sherwood heaping praise on the system. My response at the time is the same today. Without professional management running departments, data-driven metrics are of no real value.
      To CitiStat I say good riddance. If the city does away with incompetent patronage appointments, maybe then you can consider bringing it back.

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  2. Efficiency can be seen when more gets accomplished using fewer resources.
    Effectiveness can be seen when results are measured and compared to planned goals.
    CitiStat had lofty goals when it came on the scene. Soon results came to close to telling a different story than the hierarchy wished shared with the taxpaying public. Heads rolled. Program re-oriented and never killed, but with no employees in recent years what was its purpose? Will we ever know? Fascinating that John Gomes, the early practitioner of these very businesslike tools who was among those thrown overboard, is now presiding in administration at the same time the program is tossed. We are told the tools and approaches will appear elsewhere. Why? Are such tools important to City Hall? What will measuring inputs, outputs, dollars, and results do for departments? Taxpayers? Administrators? Time will tell.

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    1. Actually John, been my experience it’s a more standard practice for individual departments to be responsible for the data collection and reporting of the metrics that are attributable to each business unit. It’s more rare to employ a stand-alone department whose sole responsibility is to collect and report data (that they have no idea how to interpret because it’s out of their area of expertise). I would expect what once was a department will now be allocated to each department as a line item in a job description for a department head. Or not. 🙂

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  3. To all of you who care enough to post, I’m new to posting here, and I’m certainly not one of importance, but let me tell each and every one of you, NOTHING is what it seems. I stood loyal to Finch. I passed on two lawsuits that I certainly had valid reasons to do. But I didn’t. Those of you who know me can vouch for my loyalty. Those of you who don’t, I’m sure you will try to denigrate my integrity or perhaps you will be decent enough to just read and absorb my input. Either way, I am confident and know what I say is the truth. I have friends from all walks of life. I don’t judge anyone. I have friends who are black, Jewish, PR, etc., I DON’T JUDGE ANYONE. I did my job Mayor Finch appointed me to accomplish as Director of the Mayor’s Conservation Corps in 2009. My friends, that was the beginning. Can you imagine starting a department, replaced by one who didn’t have same credentials required for employment (i.e., college degree)? I did a good job, nights and weekends unpaid, I was proud. I made many new friends who believed in me. This was the beginning of the horrible lesson of how dirty politics can be. I made Channel 12, Channel 8, Thumbs up from Mike Daily, Editor of CT Post, blogs, the list goes on. One day I was approached by Willie Murphy, a gentleman (so I thought) from the East side of BPT and I believe he has a HS diploma. He told me he was taking over my job. I was a lady, I handled it, showed him my records, and ironically. received a phone call within minutes about my replacement. It hurt. It hurt even more when my canvassers who worked under my direction came to me and complained about sexual comments he made about me. It was brought to Larry Osborne, Labor Relations. I had my good friend, Gene O’Neill with me, as a witness. Turns out, she GOT FIRED. I was flabbergasted! Quite frankly, he denigrated the administration for his comments, but it got swept under the carpet. He portrayed the mayor and others as, well, use your imagination.

    I put my heart and soul into the Mayor’s Conservation Department. I met wonderful, respectful people, you all know whom I’m referring to. I worked nights, weekends, without pay. I believed in making a difference and connected with residents. I saved the COB over $100K for rain barrel donations. I’ll end it here. This was the beginning of a hurtful journey for me. But I received letters personally and some to the CT Post.

    It’s late, I’ll end it here. Finch is VINDICTIVE, mark my words, he talked about Joe being a felon. Karma, my friends. Stay tuned. And I’ve got lots more. Good night. Thank you.

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  4. Lisa, I am sorry to tell you many people thought you were eye candy for Finch. Lisa, you went the way of many smart and dedicated women who worked for Finch and Company. You were fired.
    These guys are afraid of smart women.
    Let me tell you about Willie Murphy, he is a do-nothing person whose claim to fame was he got money from DTC to get people in the 138th district who vote at ESM out to vote. One year this do-nothing got out a total of seven people out of Success Park. Of the seven, two were firefighters who vote in every election.

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