City of Ontario, CA

Proactive planning and commitment to execution ensure a bright future in Ontario, California

In Ontario, California, an impassioned group of city officials are executing on their mandate to build a better and brighter future for their community.

“Ontario is really leading the way by allowing people like Jordan and I to be creative and explore new softwares like Envisio,” says Ria Pavia, the Deputy Director of Innovation, Performance, and Audit at the City of Ontario. “We’ve been able to move forward with so many initiatives, partly due to a new sales tax measure that we just initiated called Measure Q.”

Ontario has a long history of strategy execution and performance management, but moving forward with Measure Q was different–this progressive measure, which saw the community approve a 1% overall sales tax increase to fund key infrastructure projects and drive better services, would mean taking things to the next level.

“One of the things that our city manager really emphasized to us was tracking our progress, making sure that we’re always moving forward and being accountable,” says Ria. “Each department has to do their reporting and have strategic plans detailed for the next five years–it’s so important that we have a vision of where we’re going, especially when we’re passing initiatives like Measure Q where we’re asking the community for more resources. Any time you’re doing something like that, accountability becomes a priority.”

Measure Q represents an incredible step forward for Ontario–but even before this measure was passed, the city was doing all the right things to drive better community outcomes through strategic planning and performance management.

ASOs, let’s go!

To better understand how Ontario drives their strategy forward, we need to explore their commitment to ASOs–Agency Strategic Objectives.
“Our city manager joined our organization about six years ago, and when he did he brought the theory of agency strategic objectives with him,” says Jordan Villwock, Management Services Director with the City of Ontario. “These ASO’s really fit nicely into strategic plans, and each department has to have five ASO’s for the fiscal year.”

“ASO’s aren’t normal day-to-day work, like repaving a street or [X] amount of calls for service, they are things that are pushing the organization forward, something that’s going to change the organization for the positive. Each department needs to have five of these outlined and they have a year to complete them. They get to decide how they go about it and they get to set their own milestones.”

The fact that these ASO’s stretch outside the day-to-day commitments of the City of Ontario is key–at Envisio, we always say that your strategic plan needs to represent transformative work that drives your organization forward. A little incentive to complete that transformative work never hurts, either!

“The progress of these ASO’s gets reported to the city council and if we, collectively as a city, achieve 80% of our ASO’s in a fiscal year and there are budgetary savings available, then City Council can consider giving all employees a 1% gainshare bonus as a reward for completing these projects,” says Jordan. “Again, this is above and beyond your normal job, these are big projects.”

Prior to onboarding Envisio, Ontario had been using a different tool that simply wasn’t delivering on its value proposition.

“Before Envisio, we were using an older product that wasn’t fitting our needs,” says Jordan. “It didn’t provide visuals, it wasn’t useful for reporting. It wasn’t working for the end users or the managers or for the city manager’s office. Our partners in Corona were using Envisio, and we had some really great conversations and now we’re here, with 13 plans built into Envisio. Each of our 11 agencies has a strategic plan and their ASO’s are coded in. We also have a dedicated plan for our Measure Q tax measure.”

In another example of strategic planning excellence, the departments themselves are responsible for generating the ASO’s that they will then spend the next twelve months working on–engaging your department heads in your strategic plan is a key mechanism for ensuring that your initiatives are relevant, attainable, and measurable.

“The department heads come up with the ASO’s themselves on ASO day, and Ria makes it really fun,” says Jordan. “Every year it’s themed, and I’m amazed by her creativity. It was Oscar themed this year! During this session, the department heads come up with their key strategic initiatives and what it will take to achieve them, then we present them to each other and the city manager.”

ASO Day is defined by creativity, collaboration, and a commitment to making Ontario a better place to live for residents.

“It’s fun to hear everyone’s presentations,” says Jordan. “A lot of these ASO’s require support from internal services like HR or IT, especially now that everything is technology based. ASO Day is a great way for everyone to understand what they’re partnering on. And then the city manager will give some feedback, as well as council, and they might request extra visibility or reporting on some things. And then these are tracked throughout the year, and the final ones get uploaded after July for the next fiscal year. The ASO’s take flight on July 1.”

ASO’s have to fit within the cadence and rhythm that Ontario has identified for their strategy execution and budgeting calendar–Jordan and Ria refer to it as the “ASO life cycle”.

“We have what we call a life cycle for the ASO’s,” says Jordan. “We weave them into the strategic plan, and after that the cadence falls into place. Every December, we have agency retreats where leadership goes to review their strategic plan and build out a new one. They can add to their plan as well as take out things that don’t mean anything anymore. Come February, they bring the strategic plan to our executive retreat, and then in March we do ASO Day. After that, it becomes adopted and put into the strategic plan. By July, they’re ready to go live.”

“It’s important to remember that the strategic plan is supposed to be a roadmap for moving your organization forward. And what’s nice about ours is that if approved ASO’s are built into the strategic plan, they’re more likely to get funded during the fiscal year than they might have been otherwise. And whether the department’s strategic plans are five years or three years or one year, the point of this life cycle is that the lowest level of the plan is being touched and refreshed every year.”

Envisio has played a key role in redefining how Ontario goes about codifying and reporting on their ASO’s, both internally and to city leaders. It has helped individuals at all levels of the organization better understand how their work contributes to strategic success, and to make reporting on progress a breeze.

“Envisio has helped transform how we do all of that reporting,” says Ria, “We had a clunky system previously. A lot of the work regarding the ASO’s is done at the top–the department heads are the ones meeting and getting them approved by our city manager. But one of the things that Envisio has really done is to help us filter and funnel all of that down throughout the organization in a platform that is visually appealing, clean looking, and easy to use. Having these dashboards up and working is a huge step for us because our old system only allowed us to input information and print reports that only the executives could see. So Envisio has provided a huge cultural shift with making all of this visible and showing the importance of the ASO’s. Envisio makes everything a little bit more present, and a little bit more-user friendly!”

“I have this saying: you don’t buy a Ferrari and drive it like a Datsun. When we implemented Envisio, it was important to make sure we were using it to its fullest extent. And for that to happen, I think ownership needed to sit with the individual responsible for the ASO–it isn’t something you can pass off to an administrative assistant. You need to take those ten minutes and speak to where your project currently is and really take ownership of it. I also understand that each department functions a little bit differently, and we have to be a little flexible in that sense. But that’s just an example of the continued learning and building of the partnerships and responsibilities within our organization and between our departments. I know we’ve got the right solution though, it’s just about making sure we don’t drive it like a Datsun.” –Jordan Villwock, City of Ontario

Measure Q is for you, Ontario

We would be remiss not to dedicate an entire section of this study in excellence to the new Measure Q tax in Ontario. We truly believe that this is one of the most progressive and commendable initiatives currently happening in local government, and the steps that Ontario has taken to introduce accountability, transparency, and trust into this process are nothing short of amazing.

“The Measure Q tax was passed to help fund additional public safety services, homeless services, and infrastructure development and repair in the community,” says Jordan. “And we wanted to be transparent with our community about how this 1% sales tax was going to be spent. We wanted to show them the projects in a dashboard, which fit so nicely with what we do in Envisio. We’re currently using the Envisio dashboard function internally to measure and report on Measure Q. We’re an organization of 1500, and giving the city manager and the executive directors oversight is a very powerful tool.”

“We built this dedicated Measure Q plan in Envisio to be able to show the public that hey, you voted yes on this measure, you entrusted us with this responsibility,” adds Ria. “This is what we’re using it for, this is the progress. You’ll look around the city and you’ll see that progress. We really wanted to have that accountability to the public.”

The Measure Q tax measure was passed in November of 2022, but the City of Ontario didn’t start collecting it until April of 2023. As of publication, they’ve just passed their one year anniversary for Measure Q and are already starting to use the funds to transform their community for the better. That transformation comes with obligations, though–especially to the ideals of transparency and trust.

“The dashboards are so important because we are putting the community’s money to use and we want to be able to show that. This measure is going to pay for everything from storm drain improvements to new fire stations to added homeless services, and it’s going to fund cultural recreation and new playgrounds, too. It has a great story to tell, and it really is for our residents. Our Mayor coined the “Measure Q is for you” slogan, and it really is.”

For now, the City of Ontario’s Measure Q dashboard is being used internally–but ultimately, Ria and Jordan intend to make it publicly accessible so residents can explore the ways Measure Q is transforming their community via a public-facing dashboard.

“We’re almost there,” says Ria. “We have a little bit of cleanup to do, but once everyone is comfortable, we plan on turning that public switch on and letting people know what is happening with the money. And we also have some signs going up in the city for certain projects that say “Brought to you by Measure Q.”“

“We’ve also been talking with Envisio about putting QR codes on those signs that redirect back to the dashboard,” adds Jordan.

“This is a big measure for us,” he continues. “It’s going to bring in anywhere between 65 and 95 million a year in extra funding for our community.” The majority of that is going to be used for capital improvement projects like infrastructure, and so we’re really trying to make sure that our strategy for Measure Q means being transparent in where residents can see the money in their community.”

“Being transparent was non-negotiable,” adds Ria. “When the idea of the sales tax measure was initially being brought up in council conversations, this is how we sold it to the public when we asked them to vote yes. Essentially, we were saying “We’re doing this because our city has a lot of potential, but there’s also a lot of ways we can improve. And we need the resources to do it.” So all of this is about fulfilling that promise in a radical way, in a visible way, that funnels it back into the community.”

Radical, indeed! We couldn’t be more proud to support Ontario in their Measure Q initiative, and we’re excited to see how they further leverage the transparency and trust they’re building with their community.

Software, services, and a growth mindset set the stage for strategy success

Organizational change is never easy, but Ria, Jordan, and the team at the City of Ontario are making change management seem simple. In doing so, they’re helping their community realize its potential.

“Using Envisio has definitely been a shift from what people have been used to, but we’re encouraging people to use it as a tool and not just for the quarterly updates that the city manager reads–we want department heads using it at their weekly meetings,” says Ria. “Use it, get your updates in, and not just when the quarterly reporting period is coming due.”

“A lot of people might see strategic planning as an administrative burden, something to just check off and show that you’re doing your work. But it’s very important, and part of my job is to make it fun, make it applicable, and make people feel like their work is making a difference. And the fact that we can now incorporate the Envisio software and make things more visually appealing to our workforce and the public has been very helpful. It’s a step forward from an innovation standpoint, and it allows us to pivot around the old ways of doing things and get everyone’s buy-in. So with all of this, my advice is: make it fun, make it look good, and people will eventually get the hint that there’s a tool out there showing how the work you do every day contributes to the progress we’re making.” –Ria Pavia, City of Ontario

As they move forward on their journey, Ria and Jordan understand that there might be more challenges along the way–however, they feel secure in knowing that Envisio is there to help them not just as a software provider, but as a consulting partner who wants to see them succeed at every step.

“I can say that the strategic planning and the partnership we’ve developed with Envisio has been one of the best experiences that I’ve had in implementing a tool as a government professional,” says Jordan. “I’m hitting 20 years in the industry this year, and I can say confidently that the implementation process, especially with [Director of Professional Services] Leigh, made it make sense. I felt like, for once, the partnership with Envisio was just that–it was truly a partnership and Envisio took a lot of ownership in making sure we were successful. The Envisio team didn’t just give us the keys to the car, they taught us how to drive it. The approach has been very thoughtful, and with that we’ve gotten a lot further than we probably would have if we were just given login access and told to get going.”

“And in handing off to [Customer Success Manager] Heather, we’re being allowed to grow and utilize the tool appropriately and ask subject matter questions. We’re being pushed to build out our KPIs, and the partnership and consulting that the Envisio team is doing has helped us build the structure out and connect those performance measures to our ASO’s. The end goal for the City of Ontario is to have a dashboard for each department that’s not only their strategic plan and their ASO’s, but also a KPI dashboard to show their progress and their challenges. We want department heads and leadership teams to have, at their fingertips, this performance tool moving forward. And that’s always been something that Ontario has wanted to do, and now with Envisio we can do it.”