The County strategic plan is a guiding document used by the Board of Supervisors to set organizational policies and priorities 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, over the course of the past year, the County embarked on a development process to form and establish a new County strategic plan. The result of that effort is the proposed 2020-2024 Yolo County Strategic Plan (See Attachment A) for Board adoption.
The 2020-2024 Strategic Plan establishes five goals for the organization:
- Thriving Residents
- Safe Communities
- Sustainable Environment
- Flourishing Agriculture
- Robust Economy
Under each goal are a set of outcomes, metrics, and time-based strategies in order to track progress and measure success. It is the intention of staff that the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan have annual priorities. This will aid in ensuring the continued relevance and flexibility of the document to changing circumstances over the course of the next five calendar years. The strategies will serve as the annual priorities, while the goals and outcomes are anticipated to remain the same. The priorities will ultimately be evaluated by the Board of Supervisors annually at the Board Strategic Planning Session. In anticipation of the first year of the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan, the list of priority strategies for the 2020 calendar year are provided in Attachment B for Board approval.
Development Process
The 2020-2024 Yolo County Strategic Plan was developed through a three phase process over the past year consisting of engagement efforts, plan development, and implementation.
Engagement Efforts (October 2018-March 2019)
The first phase of the development process involved engagement efforts. The outreach sought to engage the input of County departments, County advisory bodies and special districts, and the community. A variety of methods were utilized to gather that input. First, County departments provided a list of their goals and anticipated challenges for the next three to five years. This information provided insight into the various activities that departments were undertaking, but it also highlighted some internal organizational goals that were common among many departments.
Secondly, from December 21, 2018 to March 5, 2019 the County gathered input from a survey released to County advisory bodies and special districts as well as a separate survey released to the public. The purpose of the surveys was to provide an opportunity for the advisory bodies/special districts and public to share their priority interests for the Board to consider in the development of the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan. In terms of outreach, every County advisory body and special district was emailed a voluntary survey for them to complete as a body. The public survey was released on the County website, social media posts, and in a press release on January 18, 2019. It was available in five languages (including English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Korean). To encourage participation, the survey was promoted through two interactive public meetings (Davis and Elkhorn), eight pop-up booths (Woodland, Davis, Knights Landing, Winters, and Clarksburg), and the placement of flyers at County service centers and rural post offices.
The results of the engagement efforts were compiled and shared at the March 26, 2019 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. This information was utilized by the Board to help establish additional topics to analyze in the next phase of the development process at their strategic plan workshops.
Plan Development (February 2019-November 2019)
The second phase of the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan process was the development of the draft outcomes and strategies. From February 2019 through October 2019 the County utilized Board of Supervisors public workshops to conduct a review of various topics of interest chosen by either Board request or arising from the engagement input received. The Board had a total of six workshops where staff provided in depth presentations on each of the selected topics followed by Board discussion. The purpose of these workshops was to gather Board direction on the County approach to addressing the topics.
Board Strategic Plan Workshop Schedule
| Workshop Date |
Discussion Topics |
| February 5, 2019 |
- Behavioral Health
- Homelessness/Housing
|
| April 16, 2019 |
- Aging
- Children
- Food Security/Poverty
- Health in All Policies
- Health Equity
|
| July 16, 2019 |
- Environment
- Agriculture
- Economy
- Infrastructure
|
| July 23, 2019 |
- Disaster Emergency Preparedness
|
| August 13, 2019 |
- Criminal Justice Systems (Adults and Juveniles)
- Yolo County Fire Protection Districts
|
| October 1, 2019 |
- 2016-2019 Strategic Plan Evaluation
- Review Draft Outcomes and Strategies
|
Following the Board public workshops, staff worked with County subject matter experts on each of the topics to draft outcomes and strategies for the strategic plan. These drafts were shared with the Board on October 1, 2019 at the annual Board Strategic Planning Session to gather their feedback. Following the meeting, staff further refined the draft outcomes and strategies and shared with the Board for additional feedback at their November 19, 2019 meeting.
Implementation (begins December 2019)
Pending Board approval of the proposed 2020-2024 Strategic Plan, staff will begin preparing for implementation which will officially begin in January 2020. Implementation will occur with three distinct efforts:
- Implementation: Staff will establish leads for each outcome of the strategic plan. These leads will form teams to aid in the development of tactical plans to drive achievement of the outcome and associated strategies.
- Marketing Plan: To spread awareness regarding the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan, the County will embark on a marketing campaign. This will include a combination of marketing materials, an internal and external webpage, and formal outreach efforts targeted at staff, stakeholders, partner agencies, and the public.
- Dashboard: Staff will work to develop an online public dashboard that displays metrics associated with the strategic plan to transparently display progress. A team will be formed to evaluate software options and develop the dashboard.
- Reporting and Evaluations: Staff report templates will be altered to align with the strategic plan outcomes as opposed to just the goals. Additionally, updates and evaluation regarding strategic plan progress will be provided to the Board quarterly, including at the annual Board Strategic Planning Session.
Next Steps
In preparation for implementation, staff will begin work on a detailed implementation plan and on a summary report, detailing the development process of the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan, to share with the Board of Supervisors in January 2020. |