Patrick Dowd’s Speech to Pitt Law Students – Excellence in Government

Here is the text of Patrick Dowd’s speech to the University of Pittsburgh Law School students this morning. ———————————————

Excellence in Government

April 16, 2009

I recently knocked on the door of a city resident who said to me “Pittsburgh demands excellence from our sports leaders, we should demand the same of our elected city leaders.” Her point was that we need a mayor who is committed to excellence in public service. It isn’t glamorous and it doesn’t get you in a parade, but excellence in management is absolutely vital to the well-being of our citizens.

Ethics and Transparency

The current Mayor of Pittsburgh has a record of cronyism and mismanagement that tells us he is not committed to excellence in public service. What we see is a lack of transparency in processes especially for permitting and awarding contracts. The examples of questionable ethics undermine the confidence of citizens that the government is serving the interests of the broader good.

When it comes the lack of transparency and the unethical behavior of this administration, don’t take it from me. Listen to the words of the Post-Gazette. “In case after case, the Post-Gazette has detailed the intertwined records of public contract approvals by political officials and campaign contributions to them from individuals at the firms that got the work. To no one’s surprise, the elected officials said the donations have nothing to do with the contracts.”

Our Mayor responded by saying, “I would argue that the time frames of when these contributions are being made…are coincidence rather than something that is planned.” I suggest that our Mayor should stop trying to kid us and start acknowledging that this behavior damages the whole mission of public service. It causes the public to wonder if our leading public servant is leading for the broader good or simply for personal gain. What’s worse, his behavior undermines the work of all of city government.

In Pittsburgh, I genuinely believe that our city employees are focused on public service. They protect us from violence and disasters. They collect our garbage and maintain our parks. They are responsible for inspecting our bridges and repairing our roadways. They plan our future. In order for these public servants to excel they need a mayor who will lead for excellence, who will get focused on the details of running a half-a-billion dollar organization with thousands of employees performing as many different tasks each day. Without that type of leadership, the professionalism of our city employees will erode and so will the confidence of the public in its government. And ultimately, the quality of service city government is able to provide will get worse and worse.

For our public servants to be professional and excellent, we need a mayor who is focused on serving them as they serve Pittsburgh.

In a Dowd administration I will do the following things:

1. I will issue an annual management report – a mayoral report card – that lists the performance priorities for the year and the work of my administration to meet those priorities.

2. I will make my schedule available to the public on a monthly basis so the people of Pittsburgh know what I have been doing as their mayor.

3. I will establish a schedule of constituent-oriented meetings across the city similar to my current Council-to-Go meetings and will give the people of Pittsburgh a regular opportunity to meet with me and hold me accountable on an ongoing basis.

4. I will maintain standing scheduled meetings with members of City Council.  These meetings will be in accordance with the Sunshine Act and will allow for regular interaction and discussion of important issues facing council districts and the city as a whole.

As mayor I will shine light on my own behavior and create a culture of accountability for my own work and eventually all of city government. The people of the city will know how I am spending my time and will have regular opportunities to hold me accountable. I will also establish clear priorities and marshal the resources to meet those priorities.

From Patronage to Performance

The easiest example to consider here is our street maintenance program. One resident recently said to me, “snow in this town is nothing new but each year seems to be the mayor’s first snow fall.” We have read stories about how this administration plays “favorites” with who gets what services.

As mayor, my administration will work with members of Council to legislate a plan that prioritizes the use of our paving resources for four years. My administration will also work with members of Council to legislate a snow plowing plan that includes a street priority list for all of Pittsburgh. I pledge to make available monthly data on performance of my administration relative to these plans so the public can hold me accountable. Where my administration fails, we will acknowledge it and work with our talented employees to develop methods for improvement. Where we succeed, we will look for ways to become even better. All the while, data will be at the core of our work and our management as we strive for excellence.

Streets are just an example of the type of leadership I will provide. The larger point is that excellence begins with measurements. If you want excellence you have to measure where you are now and compare it to where you want to be. That’s what my administration will do regularly. Every two weeks, I will meet with the executive directors and public safety leaders to review performance. We will review our goals and examine the data, which will guide us in identifying problem areas and making certain that the city government is making progress to achieve goals. I pledge now that I will on certain occasions allow the media to observe these meetings to understand the process. Every year I will produce an annual report that captures the work of these meetings and the performance of my administration.

My goal is to make available to the public real-time information on streets, crimes, housing, garbage collection, tree pruning, park maintenance and every other aspect of public service. This data will be at the center of decision-making in my administration and will help us achieve excellence. At the end of my term, I want the taxpayers to know exactly how their tax dollars were used and how they were served.

Honest Budgeting

The mayor can best serve our public servants with excellent budgets. Across the country, the creditworthiness of all local governments is being called into question. Over the next four years the city will face some of its most difficult financial challenges, and in order to position the City well for the future we need a mayor who will be honest and forthright about the city budget.

The current mayor will tell us that Pittsburgh is in great shape and that our $100 million in surplus is a testament to fiscal prudence. In reality, this is a false surplus generated by a complicated shell game.
The surplus is, in part, the result of the city taking money from the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Beginning in 2005, the city began receiving more additional revenue in the form of the earned income tax. The shift in revenue resulted in an additional $25 million going to the City of Pittsburgh.

The surplus is also a result of the city taking money from its Authorities – the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the Pittsburgh Parking Authority, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority and the Sports & Exhibition Authority. Since 2005, the city has received more than $80 million from its authorities. Some of it can be documented, much of it cannot.

The surplus comes at the expense of our seniors. The mayor continues to keep bureaucratic red tape in place and knowingly blocks 4,000 seniors from getting the tax relief that they deserve. This red tape is responsible for an estimated $6 million of the surplus.

Taking money from students, seniors and organizations with critical functions is hardly a record of fiscal prudence. What’s more, our mayor refuses to offer the public a real accounting of the cost of running city government. The budget does not reflect the cost of maintaining our facilities, processing our sewage, or equalizing pay among our employees. Honest accounting also involves breaking out the costs.  If you read the 2009 budget, you cannot see each department’s cost for pensions or workers compensation.  In fact, one line item captures this – “non-departmental costs” and it is for $150 million dollars.

Falsehoods are no foundation for excellence, especially in budgeting. In these difficult times, Pittsburgh needs a mayor who will focus on the budget and take the time and care necessary to assure the public that the budget is a reality-based document.

As mayor, I will end the financial shell games and accept payments from the Authorities for legitimate and documented services. I will also include in our budget the real costs associated with running our city government and will break them down so that we can better manage and control costs. I will also make the budget more accessible for citizens to read and understand and will make the country aware of our excellent budgeting work by wining a GFOA Excellence in Budget Presentation Award.

The first step to resolving any problem is admitting that you have a problem. At this point we still have not admitted our problem. As mayor, I will not only acknowledge but resolve the problems that exist between contributions and contracts. I will also set a standard to which the public can hold me and my administration accountable based on our performance. As mayor, I will get honest about our finances and work to resolve the issues facing us.

If we hope to make Pittsburgh the bright shining city we know it can be, we need a city government that is ethical, transparent and honest.