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New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. issued a report today entitled "HOW ARE WE DOING? Enhancing Accountability Through the Mayor's Management Report." The report makes 16 specific recommendations to improve the quality of the Mayor's Management Report.

"This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the Mayor's Management Report (MMR)," Comptroller Thompson said. "The MMR is particularly important to maintaining and enhancing the City's accountability to its stakeholders. It is the only publication that sets forth goals, objectives and outcomes for services provided by each City agency. As such, it must be thorough and accessible, reliable and consistent. It must report not only what is good about City services, but also those things that must be improved."

"A high-quality Mayor's Management Report is an important tool in assuring high-quality City services for the public," Thompson said. "It is my hope that the Mayor and his staff will find this report a useful guide to overhauling the MMR."

Among the report's findings and recommendations are:

• The work of several major mayoral offices, including the Office of Emergency Management, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Operations and Office of Contracts, are only infrequently reported in the MMR. Other agencies that provide direct services to the public -- and therefore are strong candidates for public reporting -- like the Action Center, the Office of Immigrant Affairs and Language Services and the Office for People with Disabilities should also be included in the MMR.
• In violation of the City Charter, performance measures and goals for the Departments of City Planning, Cultural Affairs, Investigations, Records and Information Services, and Law were all omitted from the FY01 MMR Indicator Volume. The report recommends that these city agencies be included in future volumes.
• The MMR's section on the Board of Education should increase its reporting on parent satisfaction and parental complaints. Last year's Narrative Volume of the MMR reports the Board maintains a log of parent complaints and their disposition but indicators on the number, type and resolution of the complaints should be reported in the MMR Indicator Volume.
• Many city agencies appear in the MMR without appropriate measures of performance. The Comptroller's report suggests various performance measures for a number of agencies. The report recommends:
  • The City should develop quantitative measures of the extent to which the Department of Health is prepared to respond to future threats of bio-terrorism.
  • The MMR should report on the Department of Sanitation "residue rates," or the percentage of total materials sent out for recycling that are later determined to be non-recyclable.
  • The MMR should report on how the Department of Environmental Protection is progressing in meeting Federal air quality standards.
  • The MMR should add indicators for the Department of Homeless Services regarding crime in the shelters, such as the number of new violent incidents.
  • Because the DOH and the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Alcoholism Services are being consolidated into the Department of Public Health, the MMR should include comprehensive reporting on the programs of this agency.

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