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Accountability

Shortly after Mayor Brown entered into office in 2006, he introduced CitiStat Buffalo, a borrowed best practice from Baltimore, MD. Acting as the cornerstone of Mayor Brown's efforts to infuse City Hall with a new sense of accountability, CitiStat Buffalo has transformed the way City government is run. Further, as the only accountability program in the US that can be publicly accessed through public access television and the City's website, CitiStat Buffalo has drawn praise from around the nation and globe for its uniquely transparent design.

Transparency

• CitiStat Buffalo is the only one of its kind in the world that is open to the public, streams each meeting online and broadcasts each meeting, unedited on the City’s government access cable television channel
• CitiStat Buffalo affords citizens the opportunity to help shape policy and highlight issues by incorporating citizen questions into weekly meetings
• In April 2009, the employee names, job titles and base salaries for respective positions were posted on the city website. At the close of each city fiscal year, the posted list of employee salaries will be updated to reflect any overtime accrued by an individual employee during the specific fiscal year

fiscal stability

• Record-breaking $21,695,000 surplus for the 2006-07 fiscal year, the largest in the history of the City of Buffalo and $15,938,209 for the most recently concluded fiscal year, 2007-08
• This double-digit surplus brought the City's total fund balance to just over $133 million, with $89.1 million available for any contingency, ensuring that city finances are protected from the current national economic downturn
• In 2007, Mayor Brown also created a “rainy day” fund, which accounts for $30.2 million within the $89.1 million undesignated fund
• Since 2006, three successive bond upgrades by Wall Street bond rating agencies, first from Standard & Poor’s in December 2006, next by Moody’s Investor Services in February 2007 and again by Moody’s Investor Services in June 2008

Efficiency

• Established the 311 Call and Resolution Center, a "one-stop shopping" center for city residents to access all City of Buffalo services, information and non-emergency police services
• Establishing the City of Buffalo as a “Green Leader”, with conservation efforts that will account for $25 million in energy conservation improvements to 145 city-owned buildings, $2.5 million in annual energy savings, and the creation of 90 fulltime jobs
• Implementation of CitiStat Based Performance Budgeting, a resource allocation system designed to assuring that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and that service delivery structure is continuously re-engineering so that we more can be done with less and savings can be used to make smart targeted investments that will improve the quality of life for our residents and grow our city
• Enhanced public access through reorganization of City’s website, instituting a web-portal for property owners to pay taxes online and a reorganization of 311’s self-service portal to better direct inquiries to the appropriate entity
• Implemented a new internal phone system for City Hall that conservatively saves the city $35,000 per month in phone service bills
• Began employing Global Positioning System (GPS) technology in Department of Public Works vehicles to ensure the efficient deployment of snow plows and street cleaning/sanitation vehicles and closely monitor vehicular gasoline usage and engine idling times