Citizen-Driven Government Performance

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD (GASB)

DAYTON, OH

Dayton, Ohio has had a long history of citizen involvement in local government. In the 1970s, the City established a Priority Board system to institutionalize citizen participation. It was divided into 7 districts, each served by a Priority Board consisting of 20 to 35 citizens. Each citizen member is selected in an annual election from small sub-districts tied to political precinct boundaries or appointed by a neighborhood association. Each board has an established constitution specifying its size and methods of representation.

Dayton’s neighborhoods differ markedly in their degree of civic organization. Some areas of the City have mature neighborhood associations capable of establishing a neighborhood development corporation while others are represented by several different block groups. Still others lack any form of community organization. Variations in Priority Boards recognize these differences and are designed to give every citizen an equal voice in government.

Priority Boards have different roles. From a citizen perspective, Priority Board staff offices are the initial point of contact for service requests and complaints. Each Board has a monthly Administrative Council meeting where district supervisors of each department of the City come to hear citizen complaints and requests for service. In addition, Priority Boards are involved in the annual prioritization of neighborhood service requests and capital improvements. They review needs statements from each neighborhood, prioritize those statements and pass them onto the relevant sections of the City bureaucracy.

However, overtime, the ability of the Priority Boards to influence government policy and neighborhood life has been increasingly handicapped by many neighborhood-based data and questions regarding the legitimacy of the Priority Boards as spokesperson for the neighborhoods. The Sloan Foundation funded Dayton project, a cooperative effort between the Center for Business and Economic Research of the University of Dayton, the City of Dayton Priority Boards and with assistance from the City of Dayton Department of Planning and Community Development and the City of Dayton Division of Citizen Participation was conceived to address those issues.

The Dayton project has 2 sets of objectives. First, to facilitate the selection of Priority Board specific Quality of Life Indicators by the Priority Boards, ensure the initial production of those indicators and institutionalize their annual publication within the City of Dayton Planning department. And, second, the facilitation of a Priority Board reform process and the subsequent development of a set of Citizen Participation Indicators to assess the degree of citizen participation in the life of neighborhoods and Priority Boards. The Quality of Life Indicators served as goals and statistical backdrop for the strategic planning each board undertook as part of the City’s “CityPlan 20/20 Vision” strategic plan. In doing so, the City developed a new comprehensive plan to include a vision statement through the year 2020.

The 3 and one-half year process has resulted in the publication of a second edition of the Quality of Life Indicators and appears to be institutionalized within the Planning department of the City of Dayton.

The project focuses on the development, production and institutionalization of the Priority Board Quality of Life Indicators.

Local Governments:

Austin, TX; Multnomah County, OR; Portland, OR; Prince William County, VA; Tucson, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; Winston-Salem, NC; Catawba County, NC; Dayton, OH; Coral Springs, FL; Long Beach, CA; Ramsey County, MN

State Governments:

Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas

Background Information: