Best Practices and Barriers of Government Performance Measures: A Fire/EMS Case Study of the City of Bloomington Fire Department

摘要

This study focuses on performance measurement implementation with the Bloomington Fire Department, who hosted the researcher during an 11-month internship as graduate practicum with the Illinois State University Department of Politics and Government and with the Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development. With the internship goal of identifying performance indicators and their industry benchmarks and establishing a process for performance measurement of those indicators, this research addresses the perceivable barriers and best practices of performance measurement implementation in a local government agency on the part of the analyst, the agency, and the municipality, specifically in regards to the Fire/EMS sector. This study is relevant to the discipline of public management (the study of efficiency and effectiveness in public administration) and organizational theory. Through the examination of informational and organizational barriers within the theoretical framework of bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic paradigms, best practices and recommendations for performance reporting are formulated.