City of Goldsboro, North Carolina

Defining Goldsboro: A Small Business Doing Big Business

The City of Goldsboro is the county seat of Wayne County, North Carolina. It has grown from its roots in the early railroad industry into a busy city with a growing focus on strategic development.

Assistant to the City Manager - and ClearPoint Community Advisory Board member - Octavius Murphy talks with ClearPoint Strategy co-founder Ted Jackson about performance management in Goldsboro and the role the software has played in the city's evolution.

Watch the full customer interview here!

About the City of Goldsboro

Goldsboro is in Eastern North Carolina and is the county seat of Wayne County. The 2020 census counted 33,657 residents. The City employs 484 full-time personnel. Its mission is to provide services, promote equality, and protect the well-being of all residents and visitors. The City's Strategic Plan sets five goals: Safe and Secure Community, Strong and Diverse Economy, Exceptional Quality of Life, Racial and Cultural Harmony, and Model for Excellence in Government. The plan incorporates departmental metrics that are tracked and measured. The City's official site is goldsboronc.gov.

Goldsboro operates much like a small business: it employs fewer than 500 people. But the scale of its operations and impact is closer to a big business. The city has been integrating business tools to foster population and business development.

Goldsboro's Strategic Transformation

Before ClearPoint Strategy, Goldsboro's approach to performance management was foundational but lacked the dynamism and transparency of modern management systems. The transition paved the way for a more organized, accessible system.

Goldsboro's performance management system mainly focused on tracking and measuring results, without a comprehensive strategy or vision in place. Some strategic planning had been done, but it was limited and lacked full city council buy-in.

At that time, the city manager was in the early stages of formulating a strategic plan. Crafting the plan took two and a half years, with the active participation of the mayor and council. Then the city manager who had initiated it left, and a new city manager brought fresh methodologies.

The transformation began when the new city manager arrived with a fresh approach to strategic planning and performance management. One key change was aligning goals and metrics across city departments, so each department works toward the city's broader objectives.

Murphy shares an inside look at the city's ClearPoint account (11:14). Take a peek

Departmental Engagement and Reporting

During initial strategic planning, department heads engaged actively and helped shape the plan's design. Reporting was fairly traditional and limited to annual council retreats. ClearPoint made performance management more integrated and transparent by giving the mayor, council, and city manager's staff direct access to the city's strategic plans and updates.

Aligning Departmental Goals with the City's Vision

The city also emphasized its mission, vision, and values, especially in new staff orientations, so everyone understands the bigger picture and their role in it. Goldsboro's strategic plan is built around the mayor and council's goals, which guide the whole city.

Each department has specific measures it holds itself accountable for. That accountability comes from ownership. The city manager has a say in approval, but department heads own the metrics. Their "skin in the game" approach means they set the metrics and commit to achieving them.

This platform has created opportunities we never imagined. Prior to ClearPoint, we never had the data in a way individuals could value.

Transparency

To build transparency and public trust, the City of Goldsboro started sharing critical metrics publicly on its website. The city also works with the UNC School of Government and other ClearPoint customers across North Carolina on a benchmarking project that compares Goldsboro's data with 14 other municipalities and towns across the state. With "Benchmarking 2.0," a dashboard in ClearPoint gives quick access to city data. Department heads can evaluate Goldsboro's metrics against other communities', which gives them insight into other municipalities, proper baselines, and areas for improvement.

It's really accurate data that tells a powerful story. We didn't have any of this.

Goldsboro also uses ClearPoint to analyze statistical data from its annual comprehensive financial report. The data isn't audited, but it gives a thorough picture of the city's finances and lets the city manager see and interpret financial trends.

Download our free whitepaper: Linking Budget to Strategy

The city's Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is an internal dashboard with a 10-year projection of Goldsboro's long-range goals. Department heads can access and rank their projects by priority there. The CIP shows fund usage by category, from planning and design to equipment and construction, for a total of $411 million, along with a breakdown of the sources of the funds, including general funds, utility funds, and stormwater. Departments like Engineering have more detailed project lists with analytics, rationales, and recommendations. With ClearPoint's tag feature, the CIP links new projects to their fund uses and sources.

The city manager really likes data. He's an analytical guy. That's why he, too, is a fan of ClearPoint, so that support system is major for my desk.

Conclusion

Goldsboro shows how a small city can change its performance management and strategic planning, mainly with the help of ClearPoint Strategy. ClearPoint gives municipalities of any size tools to manage, track, and optimize their strategic objectives.

The city's strategic plan emphasizes alignment, accountability, and adaptability, with every department's goals in sync with city objectives. Goldsboro uses ClearPoint for benchmarking, financial auditing, and capital improvement planning, which gives city management the data and analytical tools to make informed decisions.

See how ClearPoint helps other local governments. Schedule a free demo.