Case Studies
Knowledgeable. Committed. Successful.
Chester County
Integrating Strategic Planning with Financials, HCM, & Budgeting Systems.
PeopleSoft HCM, PeopleSoft Financials,
The County of Chester is located 35 miles west of Philadelphia and is home to approximately 500,000 residents. There are roughly 2,500 employees in 54 departments and the estimated budget for fiscal year 2011 was slightly over $500M. The County of Chester is the first county in Pennsylvania to initiate a strategic planning process, has a Aaa rating on its bonds from Moody's Investor services and a AAA rating from Standard and Poor's and Fitch.
BTRG's Performance Management Solution leads to Governor's Award for Chester County.
WEST CHESTER, PA – Chester County was presented (April 15, 2011) with the 2011 Governor's Award for Local Government Excellence at an awards ceremony in Harrisburg marking Local Government Week. The award, which was presented in the category of Fiscal Accountability and Best Management Practices, is a recognition of Chester County's Managing for Results project, which established a performance based budgeting system in the county to increase fiscal accountability.
Chester County has undergone major growth and rapid change over the last decade. This growth led to a decision by the Commissioners to review the government's priorities for the future and make a concerted effort to increase the accountability, transparency and performance in Chester County government. In March of 2008, Chester County adopted a Managing for Results initiative to implement strategic business planning. The goal was to enhance the performance-based budgeting aspect of the County's strategic plan by collecting data and performance information that would ensure the County's limited resources were being used as effectively as possible. In order to operationalize its strategy, Chester County needed a solution that would integrate the County's existing PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management, Financial Management and
Budgeting systems.
BTRG was selected as the consulting services and systems integration partner through a competitive bidding process. BTRG was chosen given its proven track record of implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management and Human Capital Management solutions for public sector organizations.
The Chester County project included the creation of a customized PeopleSoft solution to facilitate the entry of strategic plans and the utilization of existing PeopleSoft functionality for activity based cost tracking and workflow approvals. BTRG worked closely with the County's resources to develop a solution that provided the functionality for strategic plan entry that included the alignment of organizational, departmental, program and activity outcome expectations with budget and staff allocations. Actual costs of goods and services were aligned and staff allocations were tied to activities, allowing real time decision making through subsidizing, reallocations, or resource reductions.
The Managing for Results initiative was formally adopted by Commissioners in March 2008 to help map the future direction
of Chester County. The initiative serves to drive the performance-based budgeting aspect of the county's strategic plan by collecting data and performance information to ensure county resources are being used for the most effective purpose. Each non-court county department was tasked with developing their own strategic plan to be implemented as part of budget for the 2011 fiscal year.
BTRG utilized the existing functionality within PeopleSoft to track costs and used workflow to make activity managers accountable for time entry and purchasing expenditures. PeopleSoft's ePro module was implemented and integrated into the strategic planning solution to implement activity based requisition workflow approvals. The County's timekeeping solution was integrated to capture time and provide workflow approvals at the activity level.
The result of the project was a solution that integrated the County's strategic planning, PeopleSoft HCM, financials, and budgeting systems. The solution provided the information the County of Chester needed to achieve its goal of providing greater accountability, transparency, and improved performance to its citizens.
The success of the solution was evident when the 2011 Budget was announced. Noting the importance that the Strategic Planning process has played in helping to achieve a zero tax increase budget, Chester County Commissioner Terence Farrell said: "This is the first year that all department heads were able to address the budget process with their department's strategic planning goals in place. This helped us to review measurable outcomes when discussing potential changes to department budgets." He added, "We are the first county in the Commonwealth to have a strategic plan, and our priorities and goals will become even more intertwined in the budget process for next year, resulting in a great return on value – and a report card of our achievements – to taxpayers."
According to Chester County Commissioner Kathi Cozzone, the establishment of a strategic plan for Chester County, complete with identified priorities and goals, could not have come at a better time. "All of our departments – all of our staff – are aware of their own planning goals and now have measurable ways in which to achieve them. They also know that their department goals contribute to, and complement the overall priorities set by us as the Board of Commissioners.
"The fact that our employees are working together to make the best decisions for the citizens of Chester County, at a time when funds for programs and services are being reduced, truly highlights the value of our strategic plan," said Cozzone.
"Residents want to know that their tax dollars are going toward projects and initiatives that work and produce the desired results," said Chester County Commissioner Ryan Costello. "Managing for Results serves as a tool to evaluate the success and shortcomings of various county projects so that we can make the best funding decisions and prioritize spending. And we are providing transparency so taxpayers can see and understand why certain projects are funded over others. This initiative is about performance and delivering results."
