Guiding Cities on Strategic Planning in TML’s Magazine

Cities can take a page from the playbook of successful businesses to make municipal operations more efficient and responsive, the City of Pharr in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley has found.

Pharr city leaders partnered with Freese and Nichols to tell their story of using strategic planning to drive continuous improvement in a Texas Town & City magazine article that also shares advice to guide other cities. The magazine is published by the Texas Municipal League.

Here’s an excerpt:

“It’s important to recognize that cities face more challenges than a business in adopting organizational change, including multiple constituencies, budget constraints, more levels of decision makers, and intense public scrutiny. But adapting private-sector strategic planning to municipal considerations can result in better services for residents, more efficient management, financial stability, and a thriving, engaged community. It starts at the leadership level and extends throughout the organization.”

The article, “Taking the Lead Through Strategic Planning,” offers guidance on adopting the Baldrige Excellence Framework to improve municipal leadership, empower staff and keep the community informed.

Pharr City Manager Jonathan Flores and Director of Strategic Excellence Melanie Cano teamed with Freese and Nichols Chief Strategy Officer Cindy Milrany on the article.

The Baldrige approach, embraced by the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, promotes strategic planning that:

  • Lays out an overarching set of goals

    Pharr’s online performance dashboard offers public transparency on progress toward Key Performance Indicators.
  • Establishes markers to monitor progress (Key Performance Indicators)
  • Aligns expectations throughout the organization
  • Emphasizes data-driven decision making

An example of Pharr’s effective use of data within their strategic framework:

“Public safety response times are also important strategic plan measures. The police and fire departments sought more personnel at budget time, but the data showed that response times were excellent. The question then became, ‘Are there more effective ways to use first responder resources?’ The data-driven decision was to adopt a strategy of targeted enforcement. Those efforts reduced crime by 13 percent without increasing personnel costs.”

The City of Pharr was one of nine finalists nationally for the 2024 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award sponsored by NIST. Freese and Nichols was among the five Baldrige Award recipients in 2024; our first Baldrige Award came in 2010.