Other than Austin, the communities benchmarked in the ICMA’s 1997 report are:
CITIES: Albuquerque, Anaheim, Arlington, Atlanta, Baltimore (police data only), Calgary (the only Canadian city), Charlotte, Dallas, Fresno, Houston, Kansas City (MO), Long Beach, CA, Los Angeles, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Riverside, CA, Sacramento, San Antonio, Shreveport, Tucson, Wichita.
COUNTIES: Metro-Dade County, FL (Miami), Prince William County, VA (D.C. suburbs).
CITY/COUNTY PAIRS (but listed separately in the database): Cincinnati/Hamilton County, Las Vegas/Clark County, Reno/Washoe County, Richmond/Henrico County.
CONSOLIDATED CITY/COUNTIES: Norfolk/Virginia Beach (Metro-Dade in Florida is partially consolidated).
While the above benchmarks make up a fairly diverse list in terms of size and economic outlook, it still leans heavily to the South and West, with no cities north of Baltimore and east of Cincinnati, and is entirely self-selected. The inclusion of both cities and counties — some in pairs, some not — makes those communities’ data especially hard to interpret, or to compare to Austin, where the city provides almost all the services that elsewhere are divided between city and county.
The city’s own Texas benchmarks are usually the big cities you’d expect — Dallas, Houston, El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Fort Worth. The various audits also include third-party published benchmark sources, such as data from the American Library Association in the Austin Public audit.
— M.C.M.
This article appears in September 12 • 1997 and September 12 • 1997 (Cover).