A report of the City Manager Review Process

To the Honorable, the City Council:

Cambridge is an amazing city and I’m so grateful to the Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Councilors for this opportunity to serve. This is the community that has shaped my life, cares for my three children, and aspires to be a shining light for other cities and towns around the country. We are a vibrant, diverse, and beautiful city and I hope to reflect our best aspirations and abilities.

The City Manager Performance Review is a new process, reflective of the greater accountability, transparency, and feedback I have enthusiastically supported– especially for myself! Over the last year, I have experienced the weight this job carries. Our operational responsibilities cover everything from sewer infrastructure to after-school programs for children, and we are continuously holding conversations with the Council and our community about important, complex, and often contentious topics including housing affordability, building height and density, bike lanes, climate change, racial and economic justice, police reform, and much more.

Our city today runs with significant shared governance and transparency. By the end of 2023, we will have held 38 City Council meetings with public comment on every facet of city government. While the legal requirement is only that agendas are posted in advance, we post all discussion materials 48 hours before Council meetings to encourage more informed and open discussions. These debates aren’t always easy, but there is a beauty to the working of democracy in our city – a search for political consensus and a hope that a professional city staff can help inform and guide us to better answers.

I recognize that the City Manager, as the City’s chief executive, holds tremendous power and responsibility. This performance review process is an important part of accountability. I began working with the Council on this shortly after I started.

We held a Government Operations Committee meeting on November 22, 2022 to review a draft performance review process, reviewed goals at a Special City Council meeting on February 16, 2023, approved goals and the final process at City Council on February 27, 2023 and conducted a mid-year check-in with the City Manager Evaluation Sub-Committee on June 22, 2023.

This next step, submitting a review of goals and performance by November 15, 2023 will be followed by the City Council’s formal evaluation delivered at a Special City Council Meeting by December 20, 2023. I’m looking forward to the conversation and feedback.

Thank you to the City Council for this privilege and to our community for their trust.

Very truly yours,

Yi-An Huang

City Manager

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Summary of Goal Performance

The following goals were approved at the February 27, 2023 City Council meeting. This was my first year in the role and therefore goals were more focused on organizational and management transitions. We recognized that over time, we would like to move toward more measurable metrics. We also set goals recognizing that they should be both achievable and ambitious. I have used as a rule of thumb that goals should have an ~80% chance of success.

Strengthening HR has been a major area of focus and I’m thrilled that Rae Catchings, our new Chief People Officer, joined the City in June. A number of the goals not fully met fall within the HR area, and this represents both the longer-than-expected lead time to fill the position and a re-prioritization of work as Rae onboarded and provided me with recommendations informed by her experience and expertise. I hope that we can continue to set concrete and ambitious goals, while also recognizing that there is value in building in some flexibility for learning and adaption.

Area Leadership On-track to implement universal pre-K by fall 2024 in close collaboration between City and School leadership teams On-track with action plan to address police reform in response to the death of

Arif Sayed Faisal in January 2023

City Council

Relationship Implement city manager performance review process with finalized details before March 2023 and review delivered in December 2023 Work with Council to establish and finalize process for Council-City goal setting to begin January 2024 in new term Hire key senior leadership positions (e.g., Chief of Staff, Chief of Strategy and

Implementation, Chief of Equity and Inclusion, Chief People Officer, Director

of Emergency Management)

Create management and organizational structure that supports improved coordination and implementation of City priorities Begin implementation of goal setting and complete annual performance reviews for the senior management team in 2023 and establish plan for annual performance reviews for all non-union City employees in 2024 Community Engagement Hire Director of Community Engagement and update community engagement approach with greater consistency across departments and sharing of best practices Hold nine regular resident meet and greets across different locations and parts of our community Resident survey performance of >60% Excellent/Good on 2023 survey for overall performance of City government Culture Implement annual employee engagement and satisfaction survey

NOT MET

Hold nine City staff meet and greets ADEI Create an equity and inclusion framework and updated goals and workstreams that increase equity, access, and inclusion for City staff and community City Operations

Hire new Department Heads at DPW, ISD, Water and TP&T

Review and update hybrid telework plan 2.0, including staff survey Fiscal Implement greater City Council input during the FY24 budget development process, including the following Finance Committee meetings prior to formal submission of the budget: 1) City Council budget priorities, 2) Capital budget, 3)

Operating budget, 4) Police budget

Maintain strong fiscal position and AAA bond rating

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Leadership Effectively carry out the vision and direction set by the City Council including through development of goals and strategies as well as work closely with the Council to lead the City through significant events and crises.

On-track to implement universal pre-K by fall 2024 in close collaboration between City and School leadership teams On-track with action plan to address police reform in response to the death of Arif Sayed

Faisal in January 2023

We are on track to meet both goals in the leadership category. Our Universal Pre-Kindergarten program has been a long-standing City Council priority and will offer all four-year olds and prioritized three-year olds a high-quality early education. This is the largest FY24 financial commitment to new City programming and has required significant coordination between the City and Cambridge Public Schools.