Photo by Mark Newton
Despite public perception to the contrary, a performance review of Richmond’s government found meaningful improvements in its organizational structure, efficiency and workplace culture over former Mayor Levar Stoney’s eight years in office.
In 2017, the then-new mayor asked the Performance Management Group at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University to interview employees and review documents to identify issues and concerns in the operations of city government. Issued that May, the report made 228 recommendations for the 19 departments and offices under the mayor’s purview. Seven years later, something odd in the world of consultancy happened: Stoney commissioned a follow-up.
The resulting 130-page report — written by TEO Consulting partners Linda Pierce and Jim Burke, who led the 2017 review team — was limited to determining whether city officials had followed through on those recommendations. Due to budget limitations, only department directors were interviewed, unlike in 2017, when employees were also surveyed. “We found that [city leaders] actually took this very seriously,” Burke says. “We also found that a lot of the people who are in positions now are taking this work very seriously, and that is a huge plus.”
What TEO discovered was that nearly 90% of the 2017 recommendations had been addressed fully, partially or through an alternative method, “and that’s unusual,” Burke says. “It’s very unusual.” He adds that the city’s “core functions” — human resources, information technology, procurement services and finance, which were “where we found the biggest issues in 2017” — “are all working in the right direction."
Data courtesy TEO Consulting
Stoney said in a statement that, following the first report, “my commitment was to be about the fix — to break down silos and unnecessary bureaucracy and create a strong cross-functional team that delivers for Richmonders. As this report undeniably shows, we have made significant progress to improve core city agencies and make this city stronger than it was a decade ago.”
Pierce explains that the city now seems “to have the right people in the right positions, and they’re moving in the right direction. And we would hope that [the new mayor] doesn’t just jump to make change, that they actually analyze the current situation, they look at the progress that has been made, they evaluate the qualifications of who is in the leadership positions, they give clear expectations, and then they evaluate the progress themselves, in addition to hopefully looking at our report.”
The 2024 report also paints a picture of city governance that contrasts with statements made on the campaign trail. For example, all five mayoral candidates said they wanted to replace Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders over the problems cited in both reports, as well as the city’s recent problems with meals and property taxes.
Incoming Mayor Danny Avula confirmed his intention to hire a new CAO in a December interview with Richmond magazine. “I think that there are a number of really effective and passionate people working in City Hall, and trying to maintain stability is going to be a value,” Avula said, pointing to long-serving Henrico County leaders such as County Manager John Vithoulkas, who started that role in 2013. “That said, there are segments of City Hall where systems and processes have not been tended to and ... sometimes [fixing] that takes a willingness to change leadership and have somebody who’s not entrenched in the way we’ve always done things. I think my job in the early months is to really assess what leaders are heading in the right direction, and where do we need to make a change for the good of the organization.”
However, Stoney told Richmond magazine in a December interview that Saunders “has been the best chief administrative officer this city has had, and results play itself out in that performance review,” adding that “it would be a damn shame that he and others will probably have to depart after I leave office.” Over the weekend following the interview, Saunders told staff he would resign at the end of Stoney’s term on Dec. 31.
Neither Saunders nor Stoney were questioned for the 2024 report, but it found that their department directors improved “engagement, willingness to cooperate and general morale” in City Hall, a conclusion that differs markedly from that of the office culture reported in 2017, which the authors said made employees experience, in their words, a palpable despondency. In a statement, Saunders said he was “proud of the progress we’ve made.”
There remains much to be done to reform city government, as illustrated by an investigation done by City Council’s Office of the Inspector General released Nov. 25. It found enough evidence to support 25 allegations of misconduct, including nepotism and purchasing card (or P-Card) abuse, against Director of Elections and General Registrar Keith Balmer. Both Pierce and Burke say the incidents demonstrate the effectiveness of careful implementation of P-Cards, which they recommended in 2017.
“P-Cards are the best way of procuring items, but you have to have controls,” Burke says. “Once you put the controls in place with P-Cards, everything runs fine.” Pierce adds, “I think it was a bit of a learning curve [for the city]. I think that they implemented it, and they have learned, and hopefully things will be better moving forward.”
The report authors also say Richmonders should read the entire document to fully understand how the city is being run. “City government is not for everybody; it really isn’t. It’s a lot of thankless work,” Burke says. “I think we see Richmond’s successes and difficulties, but we said that this is a good team. As a resident, I would trust this team to continue to make progress, and the next mayor can decide if that progress is up to their expectations.”
