Landrieu wants city to measure up, literally, using Comstat-like metrics

In a budget address given this morning at Gallier Hall, Mayor Mitch Landrieu stressed his administration’s commitment to higher performance standards for city government.

“For too long, the citizens of New Orleans have not gotten their money’s worth,” he said. “Because it’s not just about money, it’s leadership and results. I’m serious about performance, and so are the people of New Orleans.”

To help his administration achieve this goal, he plans to use a data-driven performance-management system modeled after one pioneered in Baltimore.

The program, NolaStat, will help “city hall managers analyze data to make sure government is more performance driven and accountable,” the mayor said.

The information gathered through NolaStat will be available to the public, like COMSTAT.

Landrieu did not put a price on NolaStat. In Baltimore, CitiStat cost $509,000 in 2007, according to a 2007 report put out by the IBM Center for the Business of Governance.