Case Study: City of Gresham Council Leadership System Assessment

Executive Overview

As lead researcher on an executive-level performance assessment of the City of Gresham's city council and senior leadership team, I assessed the impact and effectiveness of the existing City Council Leadership System on staff. My findings showed that while the governance system worked well, it caused considerable staff overload, prompting recommendations for staffing and systems changes. Having designed the research and analysis methodologies myself, I used this experience to develop Council Compass™, the proprietary governance assessment tool now offered through Local Efficiency Solutions.

Challenge

While the Council Leadership System was effective, the assessment revealed significant operational and political challenges driven by the system's own success and the city's rapid evolution:

Unsustainable Staff Burden: The staff team, particularly the Policy Leadership Team (PLT), devoted immense effort to supporting the Council's annual Work Plan. This labor and time-intensive effort compromised staff focus on managing standing services, leading to signs of emerging staff burnout.

Cost of Consensus: The PLT and Council processes produced a near 100% voting consensus on business meeting items. The study questioned whether this consensus came at the expense of unheard views, minority representation, and excessive staff effort.

Mismatched Representation: The City of Gresham was experiencing significant demographic growth, having become the 4th largest city in Oregon with a population of approximately 109,000. This growth introduced complex challenges (i.e. housing, public safety, poverty) requiring the leadership system to evolve toward broader sources of political representation.

Approach

The project developed and utilized a robust methodology (which became the basis for the proprietary Council Compass™ system) to provide quantified analysis for the Council and executive teams:

System Definition: The assessment defined the Council Leadership System by its core functions: prioritizing citizen issues, framing issues for senior administration, providing policy direction, ensuring performance, and receiving staff concerns.

Time-Use Analysis (Quantitative): A one-year analysis of Council time use was prepared, categorizing meetings by purpose — Business, Policy Development, Round Table, and Executive Session. Business meetings accounted for 57% of all Council meeting time.

Staff Support Quantification (FTE & Hours): The study quantified the organizational cost of supporting the Council by analyzing FTE allocations across more than 40 staff positions, drawing from the publicly available FY 2014/15 Adopted Budget. The total estimate: approximately 20,675 staff hours per year dedicated to supporting the Mayor, Council, and the Council Work Plan.

Interview Analysis (Qualitative): Interviews with staff confirmed emerging overload, with department directors estimated to spend up to 20% of their time on Council Work Plan items alone.

Impact

The project delivered clear recommendations aimed at sustaining the city's existing governance success while mitigating risks of staff burnout and ensuring future political relevance.

Risk Mitigation & Staffing: Recommended the careful addition of mid-to-senior-level staff positions to relieve the executive and director teams and prevent liabilities emerging from insufficient supervisory attention.

Process Refinement: Recommended a series of refinements to the PLT review process steps to decrease the cost and staff energy associated with complex agenda items, particularly those requiring multiple review steps across key city departments.

Succession Planning and Training: Recommended building organizational awareness of how individual leadership team members uniquely contribute, to prepare for staff or elected turnover. The study also set the foundation for a Councilor training program covering topics including policy perspective, relationship boundaries, and the impact of council actions on staff.

Long-Term Sustainability: Recommended revisions to the Council Leadership and PLT systems to broaden sources of political representation and better reflect the city's evolving demographics and complex social challenges.

Connection to Council Compass™

The analytical framework I developed for this project, including the meeting analysis methodology, staff hours quantification model, and interview-based qualitative assessment, became the foundation for Council Compass™, the proprietary governance assessment tool now available through Local Efficiency Solutions. If your organization is interested in a similar assessment, visit the Services page to learn more.