Measurement System Being Developed
I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year! If you are like me, you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions and discovered that they are very similar to last year’s resolutions. Too often, we set goals for ourselves but neglect to track our performance throughout the year. The end result is we find that we haven’t made the progress we had hoped for.
Organizations, businesses, and government can fall into the same pattern as well. To address this, I am beginning to implement a measurement system for every town department. It’s very important that the boards, commissions, elected officials, and citizens know what the departments are doing. There are two forms of measures we will be tracking, activity and performance.
An activity measure describes how much work was done. For instance, the Building Official reviewed 59 permits and had 230 phone calls in December amongst other things. Tracking this kind of data allows us to understand where they are spending their time.
A performance measure tells us how well we are doing a specific task. An example would be how a department’s budget is tracking or how many citizen complaints were received. These measures let us see where we are performing well and where we are not. When we identify an area that is underperforming, I want to find the root cause and try to address it.
Proposed Streamflow Regulations A Concern
As we wait for the state to resolve their budget issues, we are also working with them to address other concerns we have with pending legislation. One of the proposed bills would give the state broad powers to regulate water usage by towns in order to protect the environment.
These new regulations could severely impact Colchester’s ability to provide water to residents and businesses. It could also dramatically increase the costs to those who use town water. The impact would not be felt for several years, but the proposed legislation is being debated right now and we need to ensure our interests are protected.
I fully understand and appreciate the intent of this bill. Protecting our environment is something we all need to do a better job of and I support that mission. We also need to recognize that balancing the needs of the environment with the needs of human society is not an easy task. Regulations have the potential to increase costs, restrict economic growth, and create other unintended consequences.
Colchester has dealt with water supply issues in the past and it has hurt us tremendously. When we were forced to implement a water moratorium during a period of economic expansion, we could not take advantage of the situation and grow our business base. While these proposed regulations would not create a moratorium, it likely will increase our costs to deliver water as well as diminish the supply available.
My major concern with this legislation is that we do not know what the full impact to Colchester will be once the regulations come into effect. Our Public Works Department, other towns, and various municipal agencies have all expressed concern over this proposed regulation. We are all working with the state to find some resolution that will not hurt Colchester or the other towns that could be impacted. As always, I’ll keep everyone informed as decisions are made.
- Gregg Schuster
First Selectman
Previous Selectman Notes can be viewed at
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