Jersey City is taking a cue from Baltimore to implement the CitiStat computer database system, a management tool that reviews city government operations.
The system has been in place in Maryland’s largest city since 2000.
Jersey City officials began considering the CitiStat system to manage the municipal staff of 2,680 employees during late Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham’s administration.
Former Cunningham staffer Carl Czaplicki, now Mayor Jerramiah Healy’s chief of staff, has made instituting CitiStat his personal project.
Czaplicki, Healy, Councilman Mariano Vega, and other officials have visited Baltimore in the past two years to study how the program works. Czaplicki said it should be up and running in Jersey City by the end of September this year.
“It’s a team-building effort that allows us to create a better sense of accountability where we set goals and meet them,” Czaplicki said.
Czaplicki said it could even lead to downsizing. “Ultimately, the goal is to save money as we find out how to improve services and make it more efficient,” he said.Easy to file complaints
Czaplicki said the city will start a temporary 311 non-emergency number, which will allow the public to call complaints into the Mayor’s Action Bureau.
Eventually, the number will be integrated into the city’s 911 system.
“The goal is to clearly get constituents’ concerns or requests into a system where it can be tracked, measured, and responded to in a very accountable way,” Czaplicki said.
There will also be a website launched this month that allows residents to file complaints before calling 311.
Bayonne is also considering CitiStat for their municipal operations. May save thousands of dollars
CitiStat is modeled after the CompStat program created for the New York City Police Department by late former Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple in the mid-1990s. Compstat, which is currently being utilized by the Jersey City Police Department, uses tracking technology and reinforces it with meetings between top police brass and precinct commanders.
CitiStat brings the same process to city agencies and departments. Strategies are developed and employed, managers are held accountable, and results are measured weekly.
The objective, Czaplicki said, is not to blame but to ensure accountability and get immediate results. “This is not a witch hunt, not a way to get people,” he said.
Baltimore estimated that it has saved at least $12 million every year with CitiStat operating on an annual budget of $400,000.
There, CitiStat includes CitiTrak, a call system residents use to report problems to all city departments. Each complaint is issued a tracking number for residents to refer to in follow-up calls.
Since former Baltimore Mayor and current Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley started the program, it won an award from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2004, among other accolades.
CitiStat has also been adapted in Atlanta, Ga. Other countries, such as England and Serbia, have embraced it. Are CitiStat and Jersey City compatible?
“Now with CompStat, what you have is the sharing of information from precinct to precinct, since the bad guys don’t always stay in one place,” Czaplicki said. “What we want to do in a similar fashion is apply the same logic. We will discuss between city departments why we aren’t meeting benchmarks.”
Complaints from the 311 number and website will go through the Mayor’s Office before reaching the appropriate departments. This way, the mayor and other top officials will be aware of the complaints and if they were responded to.
The city is also considering setting up computer kiosks in certain city buildings and reserving a separate room for CitiStat meetings and operations.
Czaplicki said that once the 311 system is set up, more sophisticated software will replace the city’s current packages, such as Excel.
Czaplicki admits that it will take some time for city departments to accept CitiStat.
“We don’t want to jam this down people’s throats because, obviously, there will be resistance,” Czaplicki said. “We want to get them used to CitiStat. We’re dealing with human nature.” Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com