Inclusiveness, Community Engagement & Governmental Processes Committee
TO: INCLUSIVENESS, COMMUNITY DATE: OCTOBER 5, 2022
ENGAGEMENT, & GOVERNMENTAL
PROCESSES COMMITTEE
FROM: CITY MANAGER’S OFFICE WARDS: ALL
SUBJECT: ENVISION RIVERSIDE 2025 STRATEGIC PLAN – REVIEW AND REAFFIRM OR PROVIDE INPUT ON THE CITY COUNCIL STRATEGIC POLICY ISSUES:
Consider receiving a report and reaffirming or providing input on the City Council Strategic Policy and receive and file staff’s Operational Workplan updates.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
That the Inclusiveness, Community Engagement & Governmental Processes Committee:
Receive a report and reaffirm or provide input on the City Council Strategic Policy for the Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan; and Receive and file staff’s Operational Workplan updates.
BACKGROUND:
Strategic Plan Organizational Structure
On October 20, 2020, the City Council approved the Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan, which represented the culmination of a months-long development process. The Strategic Plan is comprised of two components:
City Council Strategic Policy – This part is developed by City Council to set forth the priorities and policy direction of the Council to advance Riverside’s potential and to frame the work efforts of City staff over the course of the Strategic Plan.
Operational Workplan – This part is developed and updated by City staff to set forth envisioned actions to be carried out by staff to implement the City Council Strategic Policy, as well as related performance metrics to track the trendlines of progress toward achieving City Council priorities.
To ensure a shared understanding, the following common terms were included in the final draft of the Strategic Plan in October 2020:
City Council Strategic Policy:
Vision: A statement that captures the spirit of what the City Council wants the City organization to achieve as a result of implementing the strategic plan and its priorities. The Vision is stated in the present tense, describing what will result from the Strategic Plan.
Mission: A general statement of how the City organization will achieve the Vision.
Cross-Cutting Threads: Major themes incorporated throughout all areas of the Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan that are reflected in all our outcomes. Implementation of all Strategic Priorities should advance, or at least be neutral towards all Cross-Cutting Threads.
Strategic Priorities: Broad areas in which the City Council wants the City Team to invest time, energy, and resources to accomplish the Vision.
Indicators: Quantitative or qualitative forms of evidence that enable the City to assess progress toward achieving the Vision and Strategic Priorities (also known as “signals of success”).
Goals: General aspirations (expressed as outcomes) toward which effort will be directed by the City Team to advance a Strategic Priority. More than one Goal may be developed for each Strategic Priority; each Goal drives the definition of Actions (or tasks) that comprise the work plans for the City Team.
Operational Workplan:
Actions: Specific activities or tasks (inputs) comprising the work plans for the City Team that cause specific “outputs” and contribute to larger measurable outcomes.
Performance Metrics: Consistent with City Council-accepted Indicators, specific data-driven measures that determine the extent to which Goals and Actions are resulting in progress toward attaining the City Council’s Vision and Strategic Priorities.
The City Manager’s Office worked with the Executive Leadership Team to prepare a list of Actions to achieve the Goals identified in the Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan and further the City Council’s Strategic Priorities. These Actions were intended to be cross-departmental and encourage collaborative efforts both within and outside of the City organization to improve efficiencies and breakdown operational silos. The team also identified Performance Metrics intended to help measure the City’s progress in achieving the City Council’s Strategic Priorities. Each Action and Performance Metric was developed with consideration for Cross-Cutting Threads of maintaining fiscal responsibility, building community trust, improving equity, fostering innovation, and ensuring sustainability and resiliency. Together, the Actions and Performance Metrics form the Operational Workplan which was intended to be the “means” through which the City Council Strategic Policy is achieved. The Operational Workplan was meant to be agile and subject to periodic evaluation and update by the City Manager in order to most effectively implement the actions needed to achieve the City Council’s priorities.
In March 2022, staff presented an annual report to the City Council on Operational Workplan progress. Following this presentation, staff began the process of reviewing and updating the Workplan through 2025. The Workplan will continue to be reviewed annually and adjusted as needed.
DISCUSSION:
The Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan was developed and approved during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the City was operating under duress, a significant portion of the workforce was working from home, and the focus was on pandemic response, community well-being, and adapting City operations to a new paradigm. In early 2022, with national pandemic response well underway, the City of Riverside was returning to a new normal operating status: in-person meetings, virtual meetings, hybrid meetings (available in-person or virtually), telecommuting as needed, sharp increases in virtual services offered, etc. When staff was tasked with updating the Operational Workplan, the experiences of the previous 18+ months provided some new perspective on how to carry out the work of the City to advance City Council’s Strategic Priorities through:
Combining actions with significant overlap or that were duplicative The inclusion of City Council initiatives that took shape after the approval of the Strategic Plan in October 2020 Revision or replacement of performance metrics and actions Updates for programs that had taken shape over the course of the past year Replaced “tiers” with estimated start time of actions
Mindfulness of the Triple Bottom Line as a driver to advance Envision Riverside 2025 and to reaffirm the City’s commitment to sustainability Overall layout and appearance of the Strategic Plan document As City operations began functioning more normally during the last year of the pandemic, there was increased opportunity for staff collaboration and conversation about the direction of the Workplan and better alignment with the FY 2022-24 Biennial Budget cycle.
Several challenges were identified during the process to update the Operational Workplan:
The limitations of existing systems to capture and report Strategic Plan progress in a meaningful way. Staff reviewed software options that can produce a dashboard and improve reporting that may make Strategic Plan reporting more effective. Staff continues to research options but does not currently have a nonlabor-intensive way to share, update, and coordinate implementation of the Strategic Plan.
Incorporating new Council initiatives as new actions or metrics.
Take a pause on existing Workplan elements to provide the capacity to make progress on the new initiatives.
Funding and staffing challenges impact the ability to undertake some action items. The effects of the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine War, inflation, interest rates and other economic impacts will continue to require careful evaluation and monitoring going forward. The Council’s approval of a new two-year budget, beginning on July 1, 2022, will allow all vacant positions to be recruited and filled. Hiring these vacant positions will increase staff capacity once the new team members are on-boarded, trained and acclimated. However, there still remain instances where Strategic Plan items are not fully funded or are not funded at all.
Staff updates to the Workplan continue to support and align with Council’s Strategic Priorities, and help to advance the City organization socially, economically, and as stewards of the environment. This review process is an opportunity for City Council to affirm its priorities and ensure that clear Strategic Policy guidelines are in place.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact associated with this report. Items identified as needing research that may result in a cost will be handled in accordance with City budgeting and purchasing procedures.
Prepared by: Randy Solis, Principal Management Analyst Lee Withers, Principal Management Analyst
Certified as to
availability of funds: Edward Enriquez, Interim Assistant City Manager/Chief Financial Officer/City Treasurer Approved by: Michael D. Moore, Interim City Manager Approved as to form: Phaedra A. Norton, City Attorney
Attachments:
Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan
Presentation
Envision Riverside 2025 Strategic Plan ● Page 2