DIRECTOR’S OFFICE The Director’s Office oversees the seven
The final report measured the City’s
divisions that make up our department
competitiveness in both the region
including Economic Development,
and the nation by profiling our major
Major Projects, Housing and Community
incentive programs against peer cities. It
Development, Fiscal and Operations,
also made several recommendations on
Monitoring and Compliance, Policy and
how the City can improve development
Communications, and Parking Facilities.
efforts, which we began implementing
Together, the DCED team is highly
immediately. For example, we created a
focused and responsive to the needs of
more robust process in which we provide
constituents and implements policies that
detailed information to City Council and
are innovative, transparent, and maximize
the general public about our investment
efficiency.
decisions.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS Looking back on 2016, our department achieved several major accomplishments which include: Incentive Review From July 2015 to June 2016, DCED
Capitalizing on development momentum is a key goal of our department.
actively collaborated with HR&A, an industry-leading consulting firm whose core mission is to reinvent cities into
In addition to making changes to our
vibrant urban centers that offer jobs
incentive tools, we expanded the role of
and sustain a high quality of life for
our Monitoring and Compliance Division
diverse communities. The result of this
to facilitate a more rigorous monitoring
collaboration was a comprehensive
process that includes surveillance
review of the City’s incentive policies. The
reviews, and tracking the progress of
primary objectives of this review were to
commitments made by incentivized
evaluate the effectiveness of the City’s
businesses. Finally, we formed a Data
incentive offerings, assess the processes
Integrity Team (DIT), inclusive of
by which projects were evaluated, and
members of each division and led by
identify how the department’s toolkit can
a Data Integrity Manager. The DIT is
be enhanced to help maximize the City’s
tasked with streamlining data collection
return on investment.
and ensuring accuracy. All of this was done to improve our competitiveness, minimize risk, and maximize return on City investments.
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