A Policy Wonk's Dream Come True

Do you long for the sophisticated fusion of data, long-range plans and budgets? Step into the FWLab to learn from the innovators in Fort Worth

The dream of top executives and managers at forward-thinking, continuously improving local governments sure looks like it’s coming true at the City of Fort Worth.

I’m referring to the types of leaders who are doing their damndest to think and act strategically, with an eye to the future and a commitment to delivering excellence to their constituents — you know, your basic GGF reader.

The dream I speak of takes long-term strategic plans, infrastructure plans, and reams of program data, then artfully fuses them together through enterprise-wide collaboration to guide elected leaders and staff in developing budgets and implementing programs that reflect priorities and deliver the goods to taxpayers.

The work is being done in what they’re calling Fort Worth Lab, or the FWLab. City Manager David Cooke, donning a white lab coat for a theatrical flourish, introduced the FWLab to City Council last May.

“I’ve had a goal for a number of years that envisions a group of employees working at a corporate level that combines data analytics, budgeting — or how we allocate our scarce resources — and public policy analysis. The idea of answering the question for you, City Council, and our citizens and our community: How are we making Fort Worth a better place in our organization? We have a large number of plans. We collect a lot of data. We have a large operating and capital budget, and we measure a lot of activities. I think there is magic, though, when you combine all of that and then have a bunch of curious people that ask public policy questions.”

Questions like:

• Has increased spending on streetlights and pavement markings made Fort Worth a safer place? Have traffic and pedestrian accidents gone down?

• Has the addition of civilian response personnel in the Police Department to handle lower priority activity improved the availability of patrol officers on the streets?

• How can the city improve the 911 system from the time the caller calls to the time the response is at their side?

• In the future, how will artificial intelligence, drones and robotics affect how we deliver services in the City of Fort Worth?

Those are great questions that aren’t always easy to answer. But answering them well is a big part of why Cooke created the FWLab.

Tasked with leading the lab is Christianne Simmons, Chief Transformation Officer. She had been the lab’s assistant director before getting tapped for the head gig this past December following a nationwide search. FWLab has a $13 million budget and 39 employees who serve on four teams: budget (operating and capital), data analytics, strategy and performance, and long-range planning. FWLab expects to deliver an outsized bang for the buck in the city’s overall $2.6 billion budget and 8,165 employees.

FWLab’s mission is to “enhance the organization’s capacity to be exploring and learning from and making decisions based on data that’s largely already discoverable across the organization,” Simmons said.

“We have a lot of data, but it’s not necessarily clean and organized and easily utilized,” she said. “And so, the data is sort of the crux of a lot of what we’re doing in the lab, whether it’s the long-range planning stuff or the budget stuff. We want to be a pioneer in using that data robustly and in a smart way, and then (have) enterprise-wide collaboration that can help inform policy decisions in the budget and beyond.” 

Did I mention Christianne is a local gov rock star in the making? Doubt me? Behold her three-pronged vision of how the lab should work.

Prong 1: Be Curious. Lab employees should be “curious learners,” she said. The lab acts as a kind of in-house consultant to the organization, so its employees should be diving deeply into data and be “the most curious person in the room and stepping outside our expertise often in order to increase our expertise.” Yes, yes. Tell me more.

Prong 2: Be a Collaborative Thought Partner. “We want our internal customers to be seeking us out early and often as trusted partners,” Simmons said, “and engage with them in a mutually beneficial way, not just for us, but adding value to them as well and keep people coming back by actually providing thoughtful analysis and data and that higher altitude perspective.” Be still my heart.

Prong 3: Stand In Defense of the Taxpayer. Lab employees will conduct analysis “in a way that considers … constantly whether we’re keeping our promises to the community and using data to determine the best allocation of taxpayer resources,” Simmons said, “and understanding the trade-offs that we’re making with each decision.” That includes enhanced and innovative public engagement “to make sure we’re staying in tune with what our residents expect.” Game, set, match.

Sign. Me. Up.

All this collaboration is critical when it comes to developing the budget, and the FWLab helps drive that process. Like a lot of cities with a fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, Fort Worth is gearing up now to develop its FY 2025 budget. The City Council kicks off the process by reviewing and updating its strategic priorities, typically in March. This year, because of the work of FWLab in providing more meaningful data, that process will now start in late February, at the council’s request, so they can get a better handle on the municipal budget’s many moving parts.

The city launched a priority-based budgeting process with just three departments at mid-year. This go-round, there are nine departments engaged in priority-based budgeting.

“With priority-based budgeting, our aim is to do budget work sessions earlier in the fiscal year to prep (council members) and give them more context of those nine departments,” Simmons said. “What it costs to run those core functions, and how those tie to (City Council) priorities. And then here are some of the asks that are likely coming around the pike, and here’s how those would advance your priorities. So, it all starts with that umbrella.”

As the city moves fully into priority-based budgeting, one of the first things departments need to understand is that “priority means council priorities,” Simmons said.

In case you’re wondering, council’s priorities are:

• Economic Development and Community Investment

• Community Safety

• Infrastructure, Responsible Growth and Fiscal Responsibility

FWLab employees are digging deep to increase departmental understanding of costs to deliver services. The process will ensure “that every department has a deep understanding of their program inventory,” Simmons said. “What is it costing you to perform both your core and discretionary functions?”

Clearly, the FWLab has buy-in from the city manager as well as the City Council, which funded 13 (!) additional employees this fiscal year. It also has a steering committee comprised of the city management team and department heads. They meet monthly with an agenda designed to keep them engaged in the lab’s mission.

“We’re trying to do a mix of interesting content that’s organization-wide or citywide that they might not be hearing just at the department level or even in department head meetings,” Simmons said. “But we’re also asking them to help steer our priorities based on their views of what the organization needs and how we could add the most value. … The steering committee, I think, is critical going forward for me, for sure, as a leader of the lab. I need those checks and balances and other voices helping to shape where we’re going.”

They’re still working through the citizen engagement piece, with Chief Communications Officer Reyne Telles contributing his ample experience and expertise. One idea is to leverage the city’s already robust citizen outreach programs to include soliciting input relevant to the FWLab.

“Why not take a more holistic look at the entire landscape so that the meetings aren’t one-offs just for a handful of people that are interested in one topic,” Telles said, “but (they) can become more interested in a series of topics where we’re engaging across the board at either walkabout galleries or small tables. That is part of what we’re looking to do.”

The city engaged the Alliance for Innovation¹ last year to conduct a series of employee workshops on strategic foresight, a discipline that analyzes emerging trends, cutting-edge technologies, and social, economic, and environmental shifts.

“They sort of helped us ask the right questions about maybe not what is this year going to look like with AI, but what are different scenarios that Fort Worth could look like in 20 years from now,” Simmons said. “For example, if we make this portfolio of decisions, here’s a scenario that the city could be in. It helps us frame policy decisions through that lens.”

The exercise speaks to the FWLab’s curious nature. AFI is preparing a report for the city to provide it with another tool for future planning.

“I’m excited to see that report and how actionable it is,” Simmons says, “not just for the next couple of years’ budgets, but sort of how we start to think about things like the workforce and what tools we want to maybe be early adopters of versus where do we want to wait.”

The FWLab certainly has the support of Mayor Mattie Parker, a self-described “policy wonk.” Seeing her speak at the Servant Leadership Conference (SLC) last month, it was obvious to me the wonderfully wonky work being done in FWLab will enable her to make better decisions leading the city of 935,508.

“I’m a nerd,” Parker said. “I really like getting very deep on a topic. You can’t do that as a mayor. And I have to be an inch deep and a mile wide on a lot of topics, which can be difficult for me.”

We’ll have more on Mayor Parker’s speech at SLC² in a future GGF. Trust me, it’s good governance gold.

But back to where we started today’s post. Making a policy wonk/servant leader’s dream come true is how Fort Worth — the fastest-growing big city in America — can live up to its audacious vision “to be the most livable and best-managed city in the country.” Here’s how Fort Worth employees see the vision.

We’ll check in with the FWLab now and again to see how the work is progressing. I know I’ve gone total fanboy with this post, but it’s hard not to when you see the talent and leadership in place in Fort Worth taking good government to a higher level.

GovEphemera: Hits & Misses

• Good job, Chief! Denison Fire Rescue in Texas last month earned its Class 1 ISO (Insurance Services Office) rating, the highest possible. More than 50,000 fire departments are graded by ISO, and currently there are only 82 agencies in Texas and 411 across the nation that have earned a Class 1 rating, decreasing the cost of casualty insurance for Denison residents and commercial businesses.

• Good lord, Chief … The City Council of Holland, Texas, voted 4-1 on Jan. 22 to fire Police Chief Shawn Newson, who reportedly admitted to making 149 transactions on City debit cards that were not for city business, as well as misuse of city materials. The $13,000 in transactions were for feed, bedding and other supplies for chickens and horses the City does not own, as well as trailer tires for a trailer the City does not own.

• Your Tax Dollars at Work (Against You): Saw this blurb from The Atlantic and it just about made my head explode. If you’ve ever endured the already red-tape laden, agonizingly slow environmental-review process for an infrastructure project funded in part by federal dollars, then your head likely will do the same.

• Regular GGF Reminder to Feature Your Wonderful Employees: The Woodlands Township channels its inner Joyce Kilmer with this video.

LeaAnn Peterson, the Township’s director of communications and longtime friend of GGF, said this video is part of a new series that puts a human face on government by asking employees topical questions. The latest was to help promote the Township’s Arbor Day Tree Give-Away event. LeaAnn credits Steven Romero Jr., video production specialist, for the great idea.

Onward and Upward.

1. AFI is in partnership with SGR, a company I do some consulting for.

2. SGR puts on SLC. See above disclosure.