This is an exploratory study of citizen involvement in performance measurement and reporting in local government. Most performance measurement systems implemented in local government focus on information important for internal decisions rather than for external uses. Although there is a significant body of literature about the nature of performance measurement efforts in state and local government, that literature has not focused on how or if these measurement efforts reflect performance issues important to citizens, about the process that jurisdictions use to ensure that they do, and the impact that these efforts have on the citizen-government relationship.

This study uses a qualitative, comparative case study approach using the New Public Service framework to explore the efforts of five local governments that have involved citizens in defining and reporting performance information. Data are analyzed across cases in order to identify categories, patterns, or themes from which new models can be built.

The findings from this study showed that no one characteristic or set of circumstances explains the nature of citizen engagement in the study sites. Most of the citizen-involvement efforts were initiated and directed by a "grassroots" effort of staffers in budget and finance offices with the expressed purpose of advancing government-wide efforts to enhance the use performance information for decision-making, and to get more of that information out to the public for their review and consideration. A pattern emerged across these five cases with respect to the interplay between government-wide planning, performance measurement, and performance reporting. In most of the cases, when these administrative functions were integrated with the appropriate method to involve citizens the conditions for "citizen-driven" performance measurement were met. Similarities existed in the mechanisms used to engage citizens, and in most cases, it was evident that citizens do define performance in substantively different ways. Evidence from the cases confirms existing research on the impacts of citizen-involvement as a device for broadening the view of performance and for enhancing civic education and the citizen-government relationship.