What does a Values-Driven Organization mean in Lewisville

Maintaining and promoting values throughout City operations is important to the City of Lewisville. In 2017, an employee-led committee began a process which included nearly one year of meetings, site visits, negotiations, input from all employees, and discussions with City leaders. This process resulted in a philosophy that would drive our day-to-day interactions – now known as “The Lewisville Way”.

This philosophy focuses on the City’s beliefs about three actions:

• We value people - we are stronger together because our relationships and diversity create the foundation for commitment and success.
• We serve every day - we take pride in serving our community through teamwork, communication, and integrity.
• We build our future – we create positive change, embrace innovation, and develop our people to grow and thrive.

The Lewisville Way is now ingrained into the daily activities of all City departments. It is included in the evaluation of City employees, the annual departmental and citywide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, and in new employee orientations. It is also displayed in City buildings and presented in City
documents.

Another example of The Lewisville Way in action is demonstrated by how the City proactively created opportunities to help Lewisville residents during COVID 19 such as by implementing the “Mask Up Lewisville” initiative to protect the most vulnerable residents, creating a phone bank to check in on elderly and disabled residents, and by implementing a moratorium on water shut-offs followed by a newly created payment plan policy that assists those in financial need.

The thirty recommendations made by the Mayor’s Commission are designed to build on the City’s rich diversity. The first quarterly report was presented to the Commission and reported on the progress made on various recommendations. This focus on quality implementation shows the commitment to gaining equity and inclusion for all persons.

The ‘Values-Driven Organization’ Strategic Move includes objectives and action priorities that further the City’s commitment to being a values-driven organization. These include being diverse, equitable and representative of the community.

Goal

Operate the City of Lewisville as a Values-Driven Organization.

What does a Data-Driven Organization mean in Lewisville?

The City is committed to having the right processes, policies, and resources in place to enable the city-wide use of data in decision making. Good decision-making leads to better overall organizational performance. Real-time data results in prompt and informed responses to new issues and challenges. There is also a need to ensure data is being collected today to identify and understand the trends shaping the future.

One of the ways the City promotes data driven decision-making is through the development and utilization of a Performance Dashboard. Over the past four years the City has developed an on-line Performance Dashboard that continues to be updated and improved. This Dashboard can be located at metrics.cityoflewisville.com. Included in the site are over 155 metrics. Most of the metrics are updated in real-time, every 15 minutes. This means anyone can see current response times to requests for service including police, fire, EMS, pothole repairs, etc. In addition, the site highlights the City’s efforts related to parks and recreation opportunities and keeping neighborhoods maintained. There is also an entire section related to the City’s capital improvement program and current development activity as well as recent certificates of occupancy. This enables Lewisville residents to stay up-to-date on the infrastructure and development activity underway in Lewisville.

Goal

What does a Connected City mean in Lewisville?

The City provides and facilitates access to people, services, and information. These connections improve the lives of those working, playing, and living in Lewisville. Inclusiveness and ensuring access to everyone is critical to being a connected city.

With regards to transportation connectivity, the City has made great strides over the last three years to set the groundwork for improving the public transportation system. Although public transportation is provided by a separate governmental entity, the Denton County Transportation Authority (“DCTA”), that agency is partially funded by sales tax generated in Lewisville. Starting in 2018, the City of Lewisville took several steps to gain greater local control over the agency, provide additional financial oversight, seek DCTA investment in public
infrastructure, and reimagine mobility services tailored to the unique needs of this community. DCTA’s governing statute has now been amended by the state legislature to provide greater voting authority to the financially contributing member cities (Lewisville, Denton, and Highland Village). The DCTA Board adopted a policy that requires any contracts with non-member cities to recover administrative costs so that member cities are no longer indirectly subsidizing those contracts.

The DCTA budget process is now more transparent, and the agency’s operating budget has been reduced while maintaining service levels. The DCTA Board adopted a new grant program through which the agency invests money in qualified city infrastructure projects (i.e., trails, bus shelters, transit-oriented development). The DCTA Rail Trail was built, connecting downtown Denton to the southern limits of Lewisville. In addition, Accenture, Cambridge Systematics, and Segal Consulting were hired to perform a top-down independent review of DCTA’s service, governance, financial, and technology functions. Their recommendations included: (1) DCTA’s setting service standards for fixed bus routes and eliminating those fixed routes that do not meet the adopted service standards and replacing routes with ridesharing public transportation options; (2) DCTA’s purchase and implementation of software systems to create better efficiencies through automation and collection/use of
real-time data; (3) DCTA’s improvement to their mobility orchestration, focusing primarily on the end-user’s experience in planning and riding transit as well as focusing on improving mobility through partnerships with other transit agencies, local government corporations, and/or private transportation providers.

Another large part of connectivity is related to technology. The City strives to expand its fiber footprint whenever possible. A great example of this is the October 2020 inclusion of the Denco 911 Annex facility into the City’s overall fiber infrastructure. This recent expansion helps facilitate redundancy for public safety resources and adds a layer of resiliency to the City of Lewisville’s network. Due to this being a hardened facility, it serves as a great datacenter co-location. The interlocal agreement between the City and Denco 911 is a great example of sharing resources to enhance life safety operations. Another connectivity technology example is the traffic signal network
project. Starting in spring of 2021 the City will move forward with installing wireless radios at over 100 intersections. This will enhance signal timing plans and allow the monitoring of traffic flow and response to incidents from a central location. This network will be robust enough to support future city initiatives in addition to traffic management.

This strategic move includes objectives and action priorities that enhance the City’s efforts to be a connected city including transportation (roads, sidewalks, trails, etc.), technology infrastructure, global thinking, and multi-modal connections in and around the Lewisville area.

Goal