Contracting for Results

With unprecedented budget pressures on local governments, it is critical to be able to demonstrate fiscal responsibility. That means that when it comes to contracting, it is more important than ever to aggressively manage contract dollars. Every dollar spent must show real value. If you rely on contracts to deliver essential services, you need to know you’re getting your money’s worth. Performance-based contracting is about making sure you can demonstrate that contracts get the job done at the right price.  That means contracts must produce results.

Are you facing:

• Increased pressure to demonstrate overall program effectiveness, despite less direct control because of increased outsourcing?
• Insufficient ability to ask for or demonstrate cost savings from contracts?
• Confusion by your own contract monitoring staff of their role relative to vendors?
• Insufficient information to guide renewal decisions in a highly charged environment?
• Inability to ascertain whether contracts are actually achieving intended results?

MR customers take the approach that “accountability follows the money”—and that’s true whether it’s high dollar, high visibility Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) projects, ongoing basic services, or even seemingly more difficult-to-measure human services. With Contracting for Results, jurisdictions know how to require the level of services they want, at a cost that is efficient, for the right results. They start by prioritizing the services and results to purchase. They create the right environment for vendors and providers, train their own staff, and develop a strong internal performance-based contracting and management process.

From its start more than 15 years ago, MR has helped jurisdictions large and small to adopt a contracting for results process that ties contracting decisions to both services and results, and aligns results produced by contractors to organizational results. Jurisdictions report better performance reporting from contractors, reduced costs, renewal decisions based on performance, and better overall results for customers.

More importantly, these governments are able to use performance-based contracts to help drive organizational goals—whether that’s to cut their budget, complete high profile CIP projects on time and within budget, deliver core services more efficiently, or create a more collaborative, results-focused network of providers in the community.

Now may be the time to assess the effectiveness of your current contracting processes, build a more cohesive organizational approach, develop more useful performance contracting metrics, or simply reinvigorate staff, elected officials, and providers to a stronger results-focus in contracting.

To read a Contracting for Results Success Story, click here to see how ADAMH of Franklin County, Ohio built their highly-acclaimed performance-based contracting process, incorporating over 80% of their overall budget.