Richard Carson writes about his planning agency -- the Clark County, Washington Community Development Department -- used performance audits to reinvent itself .
"The 150 employees of the county's community development department are responsible for long-range planning, code enforcement, and land-use, engineering, and building plan review for roughly $500 million a year in new development. When I became department director in January 1999, the board of county commissioners and the county administrator told me that my highest priority was to "change the culture" of the department.
The public perception was that the department was inefficient, indifferent, and unresponsive to the needs of its customers. It didn't really matter if this perception was real or not.
This would be one of the most comprehensive performance audits of this kind of agency ever done in the U.S. The county budgeted $240,000 to carry it out. .."
Thanks to American Planning Association
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