Background
The County Strategic Plan is a guiding document used by the Board of Supervisors to set policies and priorities for the organization for a period of three to five years. At the end of the 2019 calendar year, the 2016-2019 Yolo County Strategic Plan will come to a close. For that reason the County has prepared a proposed plan for development of a 2020 strategic plan over the course of the 2019 calendar year. The development of the 2020 strategic plan will occur over a 12 month time frame and, after Board adoption of the plan, the period of implementation and evaluation will follow.
The proposed language for the 2020 strategic plan is as follows:
- Goals: Broad outcomes that the organization hopes to achieve in the next 3 to 5 years
- Outcomes: Measurable steps taken to achieve a goal
- Strategies: The approaches taken to achieve an outcome
- Tactics: The tools or actionable steps to pursue a strategy and its associated outcome
The proposed format for the development of the 2020 strategic plan involves three stages: engagement efforts, plan development, and the implementation and evaluation.
Engagement
Staff plans to conduct an extensive engagement effort for the purpose of gathering input on potential outcomes and/or strategies for the Board to consider including in the strategic plan. The engagement would include outreach to the public in the form of a public survey and public meetings.
The public survey, set to be released in January, would be available in English, Spanish and Russian and advertised through online platforms, flyers and the media. In addition, during January and February, staff will go to the communities of Davis, West Sacramento, Winters, Woodland, Esparto and Knights Landing to host public meetings and/or set up booths at community events to gather public input.
The County has already provided a separate voluntary survey for County advisory bodies, committees and special districts to provide collective input.
The information gathered from these engagement efforts will be collected and shared with the Board of Supervisors in March for their consideration. Engagement of County staff is set to occur in the plan development stage.
Plan Development
From February through October staff proposes to utilize workshops and workgroups for the purposes of developing the outcomes and strategies for the strategic plan.
Board Workshops: There will be three public workshops conducted with the Board of Supervisors focusing on topics identified by the Supervisors and from the engagement outreach. These workshops will provide Board direction on the County approach to addressing these matters and will occur in February, April, and July.
Work Groups:The work groups will be collections of staff and community stakeholders convened around each goal area: Thriving Residents, Safe Communities, Sustainable Environment, and Flourishing Agriculture. These work groups will meet at various times from April through August to develop recommended outcomes and strategies for the 2020 strategic plan based on the engagement input, direction from the Board Workshops, and their subject matter expertise. It is proposed that Operational Excellence be included as an additional goal and to have a separate work group examine outcomes and strategies for organizational operations. In the County’s current strategic plan Operational Excellence is not included as a goal, but is used in reference to a collection of guiding principles.
The recommendations from the work groups for the new strategic plan will be brought in October to the annual Board Strategic Planning Session. At this session the Board will provide feedback on the proposed outcomes and strategies as well as set annual priorities. A final draft of the strategic plan will then be brought for Board approval in December.
Implementation and Evaluation
After the strategic plan is adopted by the Board of Supervisors, its implementation will begin in the year 2020. Each outcome will be led by an assigned department which will be responsible for assembling a team to develop tactics for implementation, collecting data, proposing any finance requests, and providing regular updates. Staff from the County Administrator’s Office will be assigned to each goal to monitor progress and assist in coordination.
It is proposed that the outcomes and strategies be prioritized each calendar year and re-evaluated annually at the Board’s October Strategic Planning sessions. Updates regarding the progress of the strategic plan will be provided at least twice a year and progress of the outcomes will be maintained on an online dashboard. |