Introducing the Austin Efficiency Initiatives Dashboard

Audit ATX speaks with Auditor Tyler Myers about the brand new City of Austin Efficiency Initiatives Dashboard. 

The dashboard captures improvements made by City departments that achieve financial savings, enhanced service quality, or improved operations. The dashboard is managed by the Austin City Auditor's Office. 

Check it out here: https://data.austintexas.gov/stories/s/vmgm-43xe

Transcript

Sam: Welcome audit enthusiasts and fellow Austinites to another episode of audit ATX. 

Maxx:The podcast that dives deep into audits and investigations our office does to make Austin better for all residents. 

Sam: We're your hosts: Sam 

Maxx: and Maxx. 

Sam: Welcome Audit ATX listeners. After a hiatus of a few years or so, Tyler Myers is back again as a guest on Audit ATX to discuss the City's Efficiency Initiatives Dashboard. Welcome, Tyler. It's good to have you on the podcast. 

Tyler: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to be back here. 

Maxx:Absolutely. Welcome back, Tyler. And jumping right into this, as we all know, the City of Austin has been talking a lot about efficiency recently. And from the sound of it, you've been working on something related to that. So what can you tell us about the City of Austin Efficiency Initiatives Dashboard? 

Tyler: The dashboard is a Citywide transparency tool developed by our office to give residents, leadership, and also City Council a clear look about how departments are improving efficiency across the City. So we've created a public-facing inventory that really is going to take all these initiatives that departments are submitting to us and be able to, you know, really quickly say, how many initiatives are out there, how much money we have realized in savings. But also, you know, thinking a little larger: It's a chance for departments to get inspired by other departments. It's a chance for City leadership to maybe, you know, shine a light on some of the good work that's happening. 

Sam: It's cool to hear that there's a place where the city can highlight some wins. What kind of information is hosted on the efficiency dashboard? 

Tyler: Right. So we're going to be taking in quite a bit of data. So one of the primary things and lenses we're going to be looking at is financial impact. So we're going to be looking at both estimated and realized financial impact, as well as other things like non-financial impacts, you know, things like time savings and service improvements that might not have a direct correlation to financial savings. But we're also going to be collecting this information about departments, about who started this initiative, when was it done? And so if you wanted to take a really deep dive into this data, you'll be able to do that and slice and dice it any way you want, but also be able to take that quick, high-level look through the dashboard itself. 

Maxx: That sounds super exciting, Tyler. And the natural question coming from me at this point is this dashboard only hitting certain City initiatives, or is it a complete inventory of all City efficiency initiatives? 

Tyler: This is not intended to be a complete list of every improvement that everyone has been making across the City of Austin, all of the departments and thousands of processes that are changing every year. What it is, is a curated inventory of major and meaningful initiatives that departments have chosen to formally report to us. So we're taking in what departments are submitting to us, and we're, you know, giving a close look to make sure it makes sense. And there's some supporting documentation behind it. And then we're just pushing that to the Open Data Platform, because we feel like this is the information that we want to get in front of the public, into the City leadership's hands, and City Council definitely wants to be – know about what's going on with the efficiency initiatives across the City. So we expect the dashboard to grow over time as more and more departments submit new initiatives. So it's kind of a living resource and it's not just going to be a static report. 

Sam: Appreciate that clarification, Tyler. Looking forward to seeing this evolve over time. Can you tell us a little bit more about why our office created the efficiency dashboard? 

Tyler: Yeah. So the City Auditor's office was directed by Council to create a transparent way to show how departments are improving efficiency across the City. Previously, there has not really been a central place to see this work, which is why this became such an important task for us to kind of collect this information and then display it in an easy-to-access way so residents can understand what the City is doing, Council will be able to see the progress departments are making. I really think this is going to be a really interesting opportunity for departments to learn from one another. And so I think that's what I'm most excited about, this kind of sharing across departments on how we can all move forward on efficiency. 

Maxx: Can you give us an example of a type of initiative that's been submitted? 

Tyler: So we have Austin Resource Recovery or ARR, who is responsible for trash, recycling, and composting. They also are responsible for something called brush and bulk collection. So brush is where you pick up tree limbs and things like that. And bulk collection is for heavier or larger items that don't go in the trash can. And so the department did a pilot study in which they moved from what they used to do, which was going around to every resident two times a year to do bulk collection, and it was just on an automatic schedule. And now they've moved to an on-demand system where you use the 311 app to request a bulk or brush pickup. And so when the department crunched the numbers on whether or not this worked, they realized that they saved over two hundred thousand dollars a year by moving to this on-demand model. So now residents can report when they need the service and the department is saving money. So I think this is an example of a good win-win for the City. 

Sam: Agreed. I like that example. Since we are all with the Auditor's Office here, can you talk more about the role that our audits play in identifying and creating efficiencies across the City? 

Tyler: Great. I know we're auditors, so we like to talk about audits. Audits help by identifying duplication, bottlenecks, unnecessary steps, spotlighting risks that can be improved, and highlighting cost savings or time-saving opportunities. So, you know, really efficiency is built into our audit methodology. Nearly every audit examines whether our processes are working well and if any resources could be used more effectively. So there is, you know, a lot of synergy happening between the audits and the audit recommendations that come out of our audits, and what we're kind of expecting to show up in the Efficiency Dashboard. So I definitely expect a lot of departments to kind of be resubmitting some of these audit recommendations from the past as efficiency initiatives. 

Maxx: Well, Tyler, it's been great having you back here on Audit ATX. Thanks for all the hard work that you've done and for sharing it with Sam, myself, and our listeners here on the podcast. We hope to hear from you again soon. 

Tyler: Great. And I wanted to give a chance for your listeners to go find where our dashboard is. So if you go to the data.austintexas.gov website and type in Citywide Efficiency Initiative Dashboard your listeners will be able to go right to the dashboard. 

Maxx: Oh, that's a great idea. We can actually put a link to that in our show notes. 

Tyler: All right. It's been fun. Thanks. 

Maxx: Thanks for listening to this episode of ATX. For more information about this report, you can visit our website at austintexas.gov/auditor or shoot us an email at austinauditor@austintexas.gov. 

Sam: Or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X @AustinAuditor and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcast.