Charter Agencies “How To”

Charter Agencies pioneer a new, bureaucracy-busting “deal.” They volunteer to be accountable for measurable customer benefits and contribute savings/revenues. In return the State exempts them from many bureaucratic requirements. For Charter Agencies, results for Iowans are more important than the rules.

You can implement Charter Agencies in your jurisdiction.

We do not recommend that you do it exactly how Iowa did it. Your “better deal” needs to fit your particular needs and circumstances. What is important is that your deal creates better results, that it makes producing results more important than following rules.

The “how to” outline below is based on Iowa’s state-level implementation, but Charter Agencies can work just as well at other levels of government.

As you have questions, please contact Teresa Hay McMahon: Teresa.McMahon@iowa.gov – 515.281.6537.

Step One

Align the Stars: Commitment

1. You need a Champion at the top. Must be the person who can grant the authorities and flexibilities and hold the agencies accountable for results. Must be willing to support and defend responsible risk-taking. Need not be involved day-to-day. Best if there are both executive and legislative champions.
2. Also a Sponsor, someone who will more directly oversee development and implementation. Must have ability to provide resources, deal effectively with barriers, gain and maintain stakeholders’ buy-in, and resolve disputes.
3. And good staff to handle day-to-day communications, implementation, and documentation.
4. Once a commitment to Charter Agencies is seriously contemplated, meet with the key people who could make or break Charter Agencies. Outline the plans and the rationale. Make the case for how Charter Agencies can produce better results and bust bureaucracy. Listen to their concerns. Ask for their cooperation and assistance. Let them know that they’ll be involved. Candidates for inclusion: prospective Charter Agency heads, unions, key legislators, auditors, watchdog groups, and the administrative service agencies. You may want to select people from these conversations to form a stakeholders group that you can use for ideas, sound-boarding, problem-solving, etc. as you proceed.

Step Two

Design Your Better Deal

1. Decide generally what you want your Charter Agencies to accomplish. At this point, because your Charter Agencies will not have been identified, you cannot identify the specific results important to those served by each Charter Agency. So broadly outline what you want “get” for “giving” more authority, autonomy, and flexibility. Establish a process whereby the Charter Agencies’ results commitments will be determined. Decide whether dollars are included, i.e. will Charter Agencies we required to either give up part of their budget and/or produce entrepreneurial revenue for the general fund.
2. Decide what new authority, autonomy, and flexibility the Charter Agencies will have in return for their commitment to produce the results outlined above. Start by exploring agencies’ “pain.” Gather agency representatives and brainstorm a list of the laws, rules, procedures, processes, traditions, and other ways you do business that add the least value, waste the most time and money, inhibit rewarding excellence, and most inhibit their ability to produce results. Review and revise that list based on what’s legally doable, political realities, and leadership’s judgment. Be expansive at this stage, however. Not everything you propose may survive implementation.
3. Decide whether a Charter Agency Grant Fund will be part of the Charter Agency deal and if so, how to fund it. A grant fund facilitates improvement projects that would otherwise not happen. In a way, the grant fund forces a reallocation from operating funds, which are almost always fully committed, to one-time improvement opportunities. Grant fund potential can also help sweeten the deal to attract Charter Agency volunteers. Such a grant fund could be created by a separate appropriation, by allocating part of any Charter Agency savings/entrepreneurial revenue, or by other means. Define the purposes for which grant fund money may be spent.
4. Address other issues, such as
   1. Designating Charter Agencies: who will name them, volunteer or mandated, “unnaming.” Any agencies not eligible because of a “conflict of interest” in some way, e.g. the administrative agencies.
   2. Sunset or duration of Charter Agency status, or not.
   3. Technical assistance for Charter Agencies: what assistance is most likely to be needed, who can provide it, and resources needed. Examples of technical assistance needs:
      • Explanation and awareness sessions for Charter Agency managers and employees. “What are Charter Agencies and what does Charter Agency status mean for us?”
      • Coaching for Charter Agency leaders and others, particularly around “results.” “What are results for our agency and work units?”
      • Identifying good performance measures, implementing a performance framework, using performance data to drive improvement, and reporting performance data to tell the agency’s story.
      • Support for teams. Align team results with agency results.
      • Facilitation and brainstorming to identify specific steps the agency can take to use their authorities, autonomy, and flexibilities to achieve better results.
      • Legal support to empower Charter Agencies. Assure agency staff that they really can exercise their new authorities, autonomy, and flexibilities in specific situations.
   4. Reporting: to whom, how often, what content, by what means.
5. Test the outlines of your Charter Agency deal with your stakeholders. Modify, based on their feedback.

Step Three

Implement: Make the Better Deal the Reality

1. Draft, vet, and pass any required legislation. (Iowa’s legislation can be found in the Code of Iowa, Chapter 7J.)
2. Establish accountability mechanisms, e.g. a Charter Agency Agreement outlining each Charter Agency’s commitments and benefits, web reporting of commitments and results, and linkage with your jurisdiction’s other accountability tools.
3. Establish roles and processes. For example:
   1. A staff-level liaisons group to share Charter Agencies’ experiences, pose questions, and suggest solutions
   2. A monthly breakfast meeting for Charter Agency Directors with the Sponsor
   3. A stakeholder group meeting monthly for the first year to answer questions and address issues
   4. Forum for handling issues between Charter Agencies and the administrative service agencies
   5. Who will be responsible for interpretation, problem-solving, and mediation
   6. How will any Charter Agency Grant Fund be administered and documented
   7. Reporting expectations
4. Educate all involved. Share answers to questions with all concerned.
5. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Listen.
6. Cultivate a relationship with a reporter or two.

Step Four

Nurture: Support Charter Agencies

1. Provide ongoing information on developments, successes, and modifications to the Champion, Sponsor, Charter Agencies, stakeholders, and anyone who’s interested.
2. Support Charter Agencies:
   1. Answer questions; find answers when you don’t know
   2. Bust barriers as they appear
   3. Defend Charter Agencies when they are challenged
   4. Mediate disagreements and solve problems
   5. Provide advice and encouragement; facilitate sharing among Charter Agencies
3. Document and discuss learning and progress. Share widely, internally and externally. Apply the learning to improve Charter Agency implementation; make improvements.