Strategic Plan

Sedgwick County has adopted a new comprehensive Strategic Plan. We gathered input from County Commissioners, our local and regional partners, community stakeholders and county employees - many of whom spent time facilitating meetings and gathering information to contribute to this effort.

The Strategic Plan will serve as a living document. We will continue to develop and modify performance measures and will use this plan to guide our budget over the next several years. As goals are achieved, new objectives will be identified and evaluated. 

Service & Resource Optimization

Balance community service expectations with the willingness to pay through taxation.

Ownership: Chief Financial Officer

Key Performance Indicators:

• Sustain the price of government < $0.01. ($0.01 of government revenue per dollar of personal income).
• Increase Sedgwick County’s community scores, in a Community Survey to be developed, as measured by a
  satisfaction index that includes willingness to pay.

Strategies

1) Review current services by department, submit recommendations, and finalize options for added efficiencies.

Next Steps:

• Establishing the framework for process mapping and identifying efficiencies.
• Identify an internal team to assist with framework and assist departments.
• Develop training for departments to be supported through the internal team

2) Develop processes to assess potential service alignment, sharing, or consolidation as part of efficiency process.

Next Steps:

• See steps for Strategy 1

3) Develop a cost-effectiveness metric to evaluate Return On Investment (ROI) and then maintain a ratio greater than 1:1 at the Sedgwick County organization level.

Next Steps: 

• Conduct research to identify existing metric options or best practices for measuring ROI for county services.

4) Explore revenue alternatives to property tax.

Next Steps:

• Conduct research regarding legislative requirements and options.
• Utilize industry and professional association research to identify options used by other communities.

Workforce & Culture

Enhance Sedgwick County’s commitment to employees by supporting and equipping them with the resources necessary to deliver exceptional public services.

Ownership: Chief Human Resources Officer

Key Performance Indicators:

• Maintain employee satisfaction scores greater than or equal to prior year.
• Maintain annual employee retention rates at 80% or higher.

Strategies

1) Implement strategically structured compensation plans that are competitive within the local market and aligned with organizational goals.

Next Steps:

• Release market-based compensation RFP and select vendor.
• Ensure Human Resources works with departments on job descriptions.
• Continue commitment to pay pool.

2) Provide opportunities for professional growth through training, development, and mentoring for middle management.

Next Steps:

• Define middle management.
• Create a development plan for middle management.
• Implement regular brown bags with middle management to seek feedback.

3) Align staffing strategies with service demands.

Next Steps: 

• Collaborate with departments to understand service demands and staffing expectations.
• Develop a process for calculation standards, in cooperation with departments, with consideration for industry standards, staff experience, and other impacting factors.

Technology

Securely leverage technology to enhance employee and customer experience and efficiency.

Ownership: Chief Information Officer

Key Performance Indicators:

• Increase satisfaction indicators from employee engagement survey related to equipment and
  resource availability.
• Increase community satisfaction results around effective County use of technology to deliver customer service.
• Increase education to departments about cybersecurity risks and best practices.

Strategies

1) Develop processes for efficiency and innovation.

Next Steps:

• Inventory department service needs and current status quo technology in partnership with IT and all departments.
• Develop processes for IT staff to identify process improvements with all departments.

2) Collaborate around funding needs, options, and models to address technological needs.

Next Steps:

• Explore opportunities and models from the private sector to encourage process changes that lead to efficiencies.
• Conduct a pilot ROI project.

3) Mitigate risks related to technology.

Next Steps: 

• Establish quarterly communication on risk awareness.
• Identify areas for improvement.

4) Expand and improve accessibility to public services through improved technology.

Next Steps: 

• Develop department road maps to identify and prioritize requests that would improve accessibility to the public.

Communications

Enhance transparency and increase awareness of services and issues impacting Sedgwick County by providing accessible, timely information.

Ownership: Assistant County Manager of Administrative Services

Key Performance Indicators:

• Establish data metrics around information to reach specific stakeholder groups and set benchmarks for
  ongoing measurement.
• Increase frequency of visits and time spent engaging with the County’s digital resources.

Strategies

1) Engage County and community partners with relevant understanding of data and Sedgwick County dashboard metrics.

2) Enhance communications capacity throughout the organization

Next Steps:

• Identify communication liaisons for all departments.
• Develop communication training.
• Increase the number of posts and messages developed by departments to assist Communications staff.
• Increase collaboration to understand capacity, risk, and opportunities to expand capacity in departments.

3) Utilize technology for greater reach and public accessibility.

Next Steps: 

• Evaluate accessibility of current websites and other communication efforts.
• Work with each department to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Create an improvement plan to increase public access.

4) Enhance targeted messaging efforts using a newly established Community Survey to identify needs and measure progress.

Next Steps: 

• Conduct a Community Survey to identify gaps in communication.
• Develop high-impact projects for bi-weekly updates and strategic direction on internal efforts.
• Identify key community nonprofit, public and private sector communication partners.

Public Trust

Grow trust through consistent community collaboration, transparency, and exceptional public services.

Ownership: Deputy County Manager and Assistant County Manager of Public Safety

Key Performance Indicators:

• Increase satisfaction related to public trust measures, as measured by a newly established Community Survey, with sustained incremental increases after identifying baseline measures.
• Increase community engagement, as measured by presentations to the community members and organizations, by 5% each year for the life of the strategic plan.

Strategies

1) Increase public and community engagement by County officials and employees.

Next Steps:

• Determine how to inform and centralize information so Communications is the data depository.
• Identify key community engagement connections in the nonprofit, public, and private sectors.
• Identify key community engagement connections based on geography, industry, demographics, and other target communication connections.
• Identify existing department-level communication efforts and responsibilities to connect all departments to Communications.

2) Use data to manage performance and drive improvements to aid transparency.

Next Steps:

• Define what data is currently available within departments.
• Identify information deserts or gaps for those living, working, or visiting Sedgwick County.
• Prioritize information or topics to be part of the Sedgwick County Dashboard.

3) Identify baseline measures and indicators related to public trust beyond survey results.

Next Steps: 

• Identify opportunities for storytelling to help define the value proposition for County services.
• Identify current areas of success in building public trust and note which should be considered best practices.