David M. Ross, PhD, ICMA-CM, is a 20-year ICMA member and founder of 65th North Group. He has a doctorate in business administration with a specialization in financial management. He can be reached at dross@65thnorth.com.

Too often, efficiency is treated as a budget-cutting exercise. A department is asked to cut spending by a fixed percentage. Vacant positions are frozen. Training, technology, vehicle replacements, and facility maintenance are delayed. The budget balances for the moment, but the operating model remains unchanged.

That is not true efficiency. It is deferral.

A financially sustainable city begins by confirming the services it must provide, the outcomes it wants to achieve, and the most effective way to deliver them. The objective is not simply to spend less. It is about using public resources deliberately, protecting service quality, and addressing costs and risks before they become larger problems.

Savings are not the same as sustainability

One-time savings are not the same as long-term sustainability. Delaying vehicle replacements can increase maintenance costs, downtime, and operational risk. Reducing training can weaken supervision and increase turnover. Keeping positions vacant may shift the cost to overtime, slower response times, lower service levels, or employee burnout.

A budget document alone cannot answer the broader question: Is the city’s current service model, staffing structure, technology environment, internal controls, and capital investment plan sustainable over time?

Answering that question requires city officials to review how services are delivered, why they are delivered, and whether current operations align with council priorities and community needs.

Efficiency starts with purpose and priorities

Even exceptionally well-managed organizations benefit from periodically reviewing services, staffing, processes, technology, and internal controls. A service may have expanded gradually. A process may have grown more complicated as requirements were added. Technology or an organizational structure that once fit the work may no longer do so.

A meaningful efficiency review should pair each operational question with an improvement option. A permitting delay may call for better application screening, clearer customer guidance, workflow redesign, or improved coordination between departments. Fleet costs may be reduced through preventive maintenance, vehicle and equipment standardization, stronger utilization practices, fuel controls, or a revised replacement schedule. Public safety overtime may require changes in scheduling, leave management, minimum staffing practices, deployment, or recruitment planning.

Efficiency is not always about spending less. Sometimes it is about delivering the same service in a smarter, more cost-effective way.

Connect service levels, staffing, and data

Cities should define the service levels they intend to provide and identify the workload required to deliver them. Many expectations are shaped by past practice, council direction, community expectations, or employee commitment rather than a clear standard.

Operating information turns those expectations into management decisions. Cities should routinely connect workload, cost, service levels, staffing, and risk through a manageable set of measures, such as permit turnaround time, work orders completed, response times, overtime, equipment downtime, maintenance backlog, vacancy duration, or customer service requests.

This information helps leaders distinguish between a staffing need, a process problem, a technology gap, a policy issue, or a service-level decision. It supports better solutions than either asking employees to absorb more work or adding positions without understanding the cause of the demand.

Strengthen controls and protect asset life

Internal controls are not merely a compliance obligation. Clear approval authority, documented procedures, routine reconciliations, purchasing standards, contract oversight, exception reporting, and periodic management review reduce waste and help leaders spot problems early.

Cities should apply the same discipline to capital assets. Preventive maintenance plans, realistic replacement schedules, lifecycle cost analysis, and regular condition assessments help prevent deferred maintenance from becoming an unmanaged financial liability. The goal is to distinguish a genuine savings opportunity from a cost that has simply been deferred.

A practical efficiency review sequence

A practical efficiency review follows five steps.

1. Confirm services and priorities. Identify the services the city provides, why they exist, and how they align with council priorities, legal requirements, and community expectations. Distinguish essential services, discretionary services, historical practices, and services that may need redesign.

2. Define service levels and workload. For each major service area, identify the expected service level and the workload drivers behind it. Are expectations formally defined, or are they based primarily on past practice?

3. Diagnose the cause of the issue. Review whether staffing, technology, equipment, supervision, policies, processes, and internal controls align with the work. Determine whether the issue is a capacity need, an outdated process, limited technology use, weak controls, deferred investment, or a mismatch between expectations and resources.

4. Evaluate alternatives. Consider whether equipment choices, staffing models, schedules, technology systems, purchasing standards, and delivery methods provide the best value. Solutions may include standardization, automation, shared services, strategic contracting, cross-training, process redesign, or changing how work is assigned.

5. Select, implement, and monitor the right improvement. The answer may be clearer policies, better technology, adjusted staffing, revised service levels, a redesigned process, a shared service arrangement, or a different purchasing approach. Prioritize actions based on service impact, financial risk, legal or regulatory requirements, implementation difficulty, and available resources. Assign responsibility, set milestones, and report progress to management and the governing body.

The role of city officials

Efficiency is not about cutting for the sake of cutting, and financial sustainability is not about saying no to every investment. The goal is to build organizations that provide reliable services, protect public resources, support employees, manage risk, and adapt to changing conditions.

Do not wait for a budget crisis. Use a comprehensive efficiency review as a proactive management tool that engages the entire organization. When it is grounded in service priorities, operating information, practical alternatives, and a clear action plan, it can improve operations today while helping ensure the city remains financially sustainable for tomorrow.