CITY OF MEADVILLE

EARLY INTERVENTION PROGRAM

EIP STEPS IV, V & VI

 

EIP STEP IV

 

INTRODUCTION                                                                                                                       1

 

BACKGROUND                                                                                                                        2

 

TREASURER’S OFFICE                                                                                                         4

 

MANAGER’S OFFICE                                                                                                             8 

 

FINANCE DEPARTMENT                                                                                                     13

 

PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT                                                                                           23

 

POLICE DEPARTMENT                                                                                                       29

 

FIRE DEPARTMENT                                                                                                             52

 

STREETS & PARKS DEPARTMENT                                                                                 89

 

EIP STEP V

 

MULTI-YEAR PLAN ADOPTION                                                                                        108

 

EIP STEP VI

 

IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE                                                                                       126

INTRODUCTION

 

The purpose of Step IV of the Early Intervention Program (EIP) is to provide an independent review of agency management practices to help the City of Meadville improve its operations.  It is the assumption of the EIP team that the aim of all local governments should be one of continual improvements in providing services to their citizens.  Organizations dedicated to continuous learning and improvement experience change regularly, and require the development of management practices to lead and track change.

 

Our analysis provides evidence that the City of Meadville has employees dedicated to service of the citizens, and that many of the structural and management tools required to lead, manage, and track change are being developed through the manager’s office.  The city, in the past few years, has taken many important steps to improve its management processes and develop a proactive culture that takes advantage of opportunities and predicts and avoids preventable threats.  The EIP team’s efforts are intended to guide the city as it moves to further improve its processes.  There are significant opportunities for improvement in a number of management processes reviewed in this report.

 

The City of Meadville needs to continue its systematic effort to improve.  The mayor, council, and other city leaders must take a proactive approach to managing the city’s operations that focuses on planning and implementing standard management procedures to help improve organization performance.  The focus of these efforts should be on developing greater organizational accountability by using accepted performance standards for both individual departments and the organization as a whole.  The following list of recommendations for each department provides a framework the city can use to advance this systematic effort.

 

The City of Meadville is composed of the following departments and offices, each of which was focused on for this management review:

 

·        Treasurer’s Of