Just approving the Comprehensive Plan won’t ensure success. For the Comp Plan to be successful in the end, its progress and implementation must be continually monitored and measured. This involves collecting and analyzing data on key indicators and outcomes related to the plan goals and policies. While the state does not require performance metrics, we probably won’t reach the goals of our Comp Plan without them.
In fact, using performance tracking measurements has become a universal standard for report cards, dashboards, gauges, stop watches, GPSes, third party ratings, financial statements, time clocks, and so much more.
Even Fairfield’s Comp Plan is largely based on ending measurements. If measurements are good enough to base the Plan on, then they are necessary to make needed adjustments along the way to ensure the success of the Plan.
If Fairfield County Council refuses to add tracking metrics for its execution of the 2024 Comprehensive Plan it will doom us to yet another failed plan, just like the 2010 comprehensive plan. For example, the center piece goal of the 2010 plan was to increase Fairfield’s population. Hindered by the lack of metric follow-ups, the population element surprised many with a population decrease of 12% from 2010 to 2020, while the state population increased 11% during that same time period.
What were we thinking?
Furthermore, the county’s current undetailed and unmeasured economic plan has left us in a three year economic development drought. In fact, the entire 2010 Comprehensive Plan self-destructed largely because council was blind for the last three years to its lack of progress and unable to make needed adjustments due to the absence of performance tracking measurements.
Progress monitoring and metric thresholds could light the way for Fairfield County. The state’s most well-funded per capita county (Fairfield County) should not exhibit all the trappings of a poor county. And it wouldn’t if our leaders could put the county’s vast financial resources towards creating greater good via a well thought out plan of how to measure our progress or lack of progress in order to reach our goals.
What are we thinking?
Randy Bright
Ridgeway