The City of Batavia received notification this week from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) that it will be recognized for its performance management efforts with a Certificate of Achievement from the ICMA Center for Performance Analytics™.

The Center encourages the use and public reporting of comparative performance in order to foster organizational cultures that deliver results that matter.

Council President Eugene Jankowski Jr. said, “It is wonderful to be recognized for solid transparent decision making. Making sure the public has access to information we use to make decisions allows everyone to monitor how the City does its business.”

The City regularly updates its Strategic Plan outcomes and performance management system on the City’s website at: http://www.batavianewyork.com/sites/bataviany/files/u151/2016-17_final.pdf.

In addition to being recognized, the City of Batavia’s Employee Engagement Survey is highlighted as a leading practice among certificate recipients.

According to Assistant City Manager Gretchen DiFante, who led the employee survey efforts, “The survey for which we got an 86-percent return rate served as the foundation of our formal leadership initiative, which kicked off in 2015. Trust is at the foundation of leadership, and we are proud that our employees from every department participated in sharing their perceptions of Leadership across the organization.

“We’ll be re-surveying every three years to gauge improvement and stay on track.”

The survey can be found on the ICMA website https://icma.org/node/93855.

“Performance management is a bedrock principle of professional local government management,” ICMA Executive Director Marc A. Ott said. “By recognizing these leaders, ICMA hopes to encourage others to make a commitment to collect and analyze data, report it transparently, and use it to continuously engage their communities and improve their organizations.”

Performance management aids in cost reduction, program prioritization, and quality improvement. It also encourages accountability and transparency. Certificates are based on established criteria and are awarded at three levels: Achievement, Distinction, and the highest level of recognition, Excellence.

Recipients at all levels collect and verify data to ensure reliability, train staff in performance measurement, and report data to the public through budgets, newsletters, and/or information provided to elected officials. Batavia is among 19 jurisdictions receiving the Certificate of Achievement, and one of 57 recognized overall, and only the second in the State of New York to receive this type of recognition.