Citywide/Countywide

Citygate performed a development services process assessment for the city of Cañon City, CO. With new leadership and evolving community expectations, Citygate’s assessment ensures that core service delivery systems are operating as efficiently, transparently, and effectively as possible, assisting the City to ground any potential structural decisions, including the consideration of a regional building authority, in a clear understanding of current performance, root causes, and opportunities for improvement. Citygate's comprehensive and objective assessment assessed the end-to-end development process and identified inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas for improved coordination across departments; provided benchmarking against comparable communities to better understand how the City’s performance aligns with peer jurisdictions; delivered practical, actionable recommendations that can be implemented to improve service delivery, predictability, and customer experience; and supported informed decision-making regarding organizational structure and service delivery models, including the potential role of regional partnerships.

Citygate performed a Citywide Organizational Assessment of all departments for the City of Pleasanton, CA. Citygate reviewed current conditions, analyzed opportunities for organizational changes and process improvements that can further enhance service to customers and stakeholders, evaluated future service demands, and developed an Implementation Action Plan including a prioritized schedule of recommendations with options for how to adjust services and operations to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability. Citygate’s analysis provided cost-saving measures to eliminate redundancies, waste, and inefficient or unnecessary operations, with an emphasis on identifying opportunities for cross-functional collaboration and more efficient sharing of resources for each City department. After assessing each department’s organizational structure, process and efficiency, and reporting and accountability, Citygate developed targeted recommendations, with performance measures and benchmarks for the City to measure implementation progress.

Citygate developed a comprehensive Homelessness Strategic Plan and Implementation Matrix for the City of Jurupa Valley, with the goal of guiding the City’s efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness, improve service coordination between the City and its programs and partners, and promote housing stability throughout the region. The formation of the Strategic Plan included a robust needs assessment, gap analysis, shelter feasibility study, and strategic framework; as well as enhanced stakeholder engagement, with Citygate partnering with the City to conduct an online Community Survey and to host a Town Hall event that included persons with a lived experience of homelessness. Citygate’s analysis addressed key homelessness services components such as prevention and diversion, shelter feasibility, partnership expansion, and the broader housing and services framework, culminating in the creation of metrics for measurable outcomes. The final Strategic Plan aligned with state and federal priorities to maximize impact and funding opportunities and provide the City with a viable path toward improved initiatives and partnerships to serve people experiencing homelessness.

Citygate provided financial consulting assistance to Harper & Burns on behalf of the City of Norco. For this financial analysis regarding Silverlakes operations and Frontier development, Citygate conducted a thorough financial review and analysis of Balboa Management relative to their operation of the Silverlakes Equestrian and Sports Park. Citygate also provided ongoing professional consultation as needed for the development of the Frontier project to ensure compliance with all City approvals and applicable State planning and housing requirements.

Citygate developed a Fire Services Delivery Assessment and Options Analysis for the City of South Tucson. For this assessment, Citygate provided two comparative analyses for the City. The first analysis examined the feasibility and cost implications to the City to maintain an operational and fiscally sustainable independent fire service, including an “as-is” analysis and projection assuming expansion of adequate, sustainable services within the City while remaining independent. The second analysis examined the cost implications should the City agree to a proposal from the City of Tucson to extend its fire services to also cover the City. Citygate provided a parallel, bottom-line comparison of services and fiscal impacts. Both analyses included near- and long-term fiscal impacts based on sufficiency of data.

Citygate is currently providing audit and analysis services for the City of Jurupa Valley to ensure the fees associated with its contract with the Riverside County Animal Services Department can be validated. Citygate’s assessment will help the City determine whether the County’s current service delivery policies and practices are aligned with the reimbursement approach for its contract with the City and provide understanding as to whether the County’s methodology meets industry standards. Citygate will provide a high-level cost analysis of animal services field operations and sheltering practices to assist the City in determining the cost efficacy of the services received and determine whether current service delivery policies align with the contract fee structure.

Citygate conducted a salary study of on-call positions for the County of Contra Costa, CA. Citygate assessed 45 classifications in contrast with comparator agencies from nine Bay Area counties, including base salary ranges and premium or special pay, and calculated new median salary understandings for the County to ensure the base salary competitiveness of selected classifications. For this study, Citygate also identified special pay differentials, including on-call pay or equivalent supplemental pay, as provided by comparator agencies, and documented market data within the regional labor market.

Citygate is currently performing a Service Delivery Study of City departments for the City of El Cerrito to provide strategic guidance related to the provision of services given limited financial resources. Citygate will evaluate current conditions, analyze opportunities for organizational changes and process improvements that can further enhance service to customers and stakeholders, evaluate future service demands, and develop a Strategic Action Plan with a prioritized implementation schedule of recommendations and options for how to adjust services and operations to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability. For each department, Citygate will comprehensively evaluate organizational structure; staffing and skillsets; policies, processes, and procedures; workload data and projections; budgets and revenue sources; and opportunities for the utilization of new technologies to improve organizational efficiency. Citygate will also evaluate future service demands and associated staffing levels and funding to outline a variety of cost reduction strategies within both present and future scenarios to align service delivery goals with available resources, developing service delivery performance measures and benchmarks to measure progress.

Citygate is currently conducting an independent staffing and development review study of the Community Development Department, the Public Works / Engineering Department, and the Department of Life Safety for the City of Hemet, CA. Citygate will provide recommendations on optimal staffing levels—as well as solutions to optimize the development review process by streamlining procedures, ensuring an orderly development process workflow, and enhancing the overall experience of City customers. Citygate’s analysis will be performed in support of the City’s three-pronged Economic Strategy focusing on Places, People, and Process. Through this analysis, Citygate will determine whether current resources align with community and City Council expectations, development review processes align with best practices, and resources are properly organized to carry out their defined responsibilities. Citygate will also develop an Implementation Plan to improve the departments’ processes and staffing and ensure the highest level of customer service.

As a follow-on engagement to our Citywide Staffing Review, Citygate performed an Outsourcing Opportunities Review for the City to fulfill the City of Novato’s Strategic Plan requirement to “Authorize a study of potential outsourcing opportunities that would improve service delivery and reduce short- and long-term costs.” This review identified areas of operations most suitable for outsourcing to a third party as opposed to the City providing the services by existing staff or identify how outsourcing a portion of existing services is the most efficient or lower-cost method to augment or assist with the existing services. This review also identified alternative service delivery methods, such as public-private partnerships, contracting, and collaborative agreements for sharing resources between public agencies.