Office of Performance and Accountability

About Us

Mission

OPA's mission is to use data to improve operations, inform policy decisions, and increase transparency.

Vision

Success is a data-driven government that equitably, effectively, and sustainably delivers satisfying services to residents.

Values

  • Rigor – we are as thorough and accurate as possible, building on best practices from other cities.
  • Creativity – we recognize that sometimes there is a need to think outside the box and come up with new ways of doing things.
  • Collaboration – we value the knowledge and experience of City employees and outside partners with which we work.
  • Effectiveness – we choose our projects strategically to maximize impact and efficiently use our limited resources.
  • Equity – we seek to acknowledge and address bias and power dynamics throughout the data analysis process.

What we do

  • We develop performance measures and dashboards that shed light on what City departments do, how much, how quickly, and how well.
  • We lead regular data-driven management meetings to set goals, track performance, and drive improvements.
  • We take on targeted analytics projects to solve problems like prioritizing a backlog of code enforcement cases for research or identifying hanging permitting cases for follow-up.

Current Focus

OPA's current focus includes the tracking of ARPA spending and services offered by the Office of Business and External Services (OBES).

  • ARPA - a collection of dashboards is available HERE. These visuals track spending across 58 special projects that have been selected to receive ARPA funding, focused on the following:
    • Safe and healthy communities
    • Reliable and sustainable infrastructure
    • Resources and opportunities for the City's youth
  • Enforcement - See dashboard HERE. Includes:
    • Code Enforcement
    • Zoning Enforcement
    • Historic Districts Landmarks Commission (HDLC) Enforcement
    • Vieux Carré Commission (VCC) Enforcement
    • Alcohol Beverage Outlets (ABOs) Enforcement
    • Short Term Rentals (STRs) Enforcement
  • Licensing & Permitting  - See dashboard HERE. Includes:
    • Occupational Business licenses
    • Residential and commercial permits including the following types:
      • Accessory structure
      • Construction loop
      • Demolition
      • Mechanical fuel
      • Mechanical HVAC
      • New construction
      • Renovation (non-structural)
      • Renovation (structural)
      • Repair/replacement/addition
      • Service/circuit/feeder

Equitable Business Opportunity (EBO) Scorecard 

  • In response to an ordinace passed in early 2023, OPA was tasked with creating a scorecard that provides an evaluation the city's progress towards equity goals related to contracting and spending
  • A letter grade is assigned to each department representing it's progress in achieving a goal of 35% of contractual dollars awarded to DBE contractors.

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