“A strong foundation for the effective use of data and evidence starts with the chief executive and leadership routinely accessing data for decision-making and explicitly demonstrating that governing with data and evidence is an organizational expectation.”
Syracuse, New York
2023 Gold Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities Certification
In Syracuse, the drive for data-driven government starts from the top. Mayor Ben Walsh sets the tone: He uses his mayoral data dashboards daily to keep staff focused on delivering high-performance parks, sanitation, road safety, and other services. He expects department leaders to come to the table with data to inform key decisions. And he uses data to engage residents, making clear in public statements that the city uses data to determine the most critical needs for everything from road reconstruction to snow removal. Walsh even mentioned this in a recent state of the city address. “I’m determined,” he said, “to make data-informed decision-making part of the DNA of Syracuse city government.”
But data leadership in Syracuse doesn’t just come from the Mayor’s office; it flows from key decision makers located throughout City Hall. That’s important, because mayors come and go. Embedding data capabilities deep within the organization ensures that the work lives on for the long haul.
The locus of that expertise in Syracuse is the city’s Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation, or API. That office has developed into a good-government powerhouse, with “responsible use of data for public impact” as a core pillar of its work. API’s 16-person staff, including a data analyst, engineer, and program manager, represents an unusually large investment in data and innovation for a city of less than 150,000 people.
API’s staff includes a full-time performance management specialist. That person is responsible for crafting the city’s overall performance management strategy and working with leadership and department staff to set performance targets and measure progress toward meeting them. For heavy-duty evaluations that require scientific expertise, API secures partnerships with outside organizations such as Syracuse University’s Maxwell X-Lab. For example, the city and Maxwell X-Lab teamed up on an experiment to test whether sending residents with unpaid property tax bills a handwritten notice would boost payments. (It did.)
In addition, Syracuse has stepped up its capabilities in results-driven contracting. Through a partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab, Syracuse has a fellow who works with a cross-departmental contracting team. Their goal is not just to make procurement more efficient but also more strategic and aligned to the results city leaders aim to achieve.
Syracuse City Government Resources:
- Mayoral KPI Dashboards
- Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation
- Syracuse Open Data Portal
- Data Governance in the City of Syracuse
- “Defining a Roadmap for Procurement Transformation in Syracuse”