Benchmarking Within a State

I mentioned in a previous post the attempts by ASCA to come up with benchmarking measures within the Corrections industry. There are several other groups attempting to benchmark data points within an industry (see HSRI Core Indicators for one example), but a couple of states have focused on a more intra-state approach to benchmarking across all government areas, but within the state. North Carolina and Florida have both embarked on projects to define metrics across jurisdictions in their states for the purpose of benchmarking against each other over time. It will be interesting to see if there is any consolidation among the varying groups attempting to come up with common performance metrics, be they state, industry, or professional organizations/commissions (such as the Performance Management Commission). While it may make sense to take from each group relevant measures, it may not be feasible to incorporate all of them for fear of drowning agencies in performance measurement reporting.