Casper Takes City Government Gold

The City of Casper took home gold this year in results from The Center for Performance Measurement.

In comparison to around 200 other cities across the country Casper Wyoming is in the top 21.

"The idea is that we gather data from all of our different functions like parks or police and fire. So we can benchmark with other cities to see how we're doing and to see if there are some outliers, whether we're doing really well or need to improve in some areas."

Collecting that data is one of the jobs Jessie Springer does as Administrative Analyst for the city of Casper. He says the One-Cent sales tax public input process last year reflected well on the city, helping move Casper from a Bronze rating to Gold.  City Manager, Tom Forslund, brought the city into the performance measurement process six years ago.

"Most local governments don't measure their performance in the first place. So any community that begins to measure its performance to see how it's doing compared to others is kind of unique in the first place."

Forslund let city council know about the recent award at its work session on Tuesday. He says the city has used the data collected to improve city government function.

"Ultimately we are now ranked in the top group in the country and I'm very proud of the organization, and particularly proud of the people, that are providing the services to the community."

Casper is the only Wyoming city that participates in the performance measurement program operated by the International City/County Management Association.