TO: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
FROM: BOB BROWNSTEIN
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION TO PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE PROPOSAL
Although there are numerous serious reasons to oppose this proposal, I wish to emphasize only one – it is always wrong for city government to present a deceptive measure that is not what its proponents claim it is.
This measure is being promoted as a mechanism to increase the accountability of the Mayor and City Council to the public. That claim is patently false.
Accountability for any person or institution requires two elements: setting a standard and evaluating performance in relationship to that standard. If either of these elements is placed under the control of the person or institution being evaluated, then what you often have is not accountability but a farce.
The proposed ordinance explicitly authorizes the City Council to set the standards for which they will be evaluated. Once this is done, it doesn’t matter how objective the comparison between standards and performance is designed to be. The entire process is subject to manipulation.
A few examples illustrate this point.
Under the proposed ordinance, a future City Council could set the goal of moving precisely one homeless person from the street to a shelter during the next year. If they objectively meet that goal, they get a raise. Or a City Council’s public safety standard could be to add a single new police officer in a year. If they do, they get their raise. Even worse, a city council could announce the goal of allowing branch libraries to be open no more than one day a year. If they successfully slash library hours, they get their raise. How could anyone argue a policy that clearly allows such actions is promoting accountability to the public interest?
Institutions seeking to increase accountability do not allow those to whom accountability is going to be applied to set their own standard. The repeated references to the state requirement that the budget be adopted on time is particularly deceptive in regards to the debate on this issue. In fact, it was not the state legislature that adopted its own standard; rather, the standard was imposed on the legislature by the electorate through the initiative process.
I hope the entire City Council will oppose this proposal for the above-stated reason and other reasons stated in a number of well-written council memos.