The Boston Public Works Department’s  contracts for road resurfacing were overly focused on achieving mileage targets to the detriment of other key goals, such as maintaining steady work flows and minimizing inconvenience to constituents. With pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, the city incorporated results-driven contracting strategies to reorient the roadway resurfacing contracts around a holistic set of goals, provide vendors with incentives to meet these goals, and increase the flow of performance data enabling the Department to course correct issues in real-time. The new contracts, worth $6 million a year, set out a performance payment structure to align stakeholder interests and reduce vendor uncertainty around anticipated work hours. The Public Works Department has expanded this pilot and is implementing results-driven contracting strategies in all of the City’s yearly capital programs (worth $40 million per year).

The City of Boston spends over $120 million on construction projects every year but lacked the infrastructure to systematically share project information and effectively coordinate project management across departments. As a result, multi-departmental projects were falling behind schedule and running over budget. With pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, the city launched a problem-based procurement for a cross-department capital project management IT system. The procurement aimed to standardize project management processes, increase the flow of data, and improve service delivery both across and within departments. After receiving more than twice the number of anticipated proposals, the city purchased a new standardized IT system that has promoted the sharing of best practices, process improvement, and increased coordination across departments.

Boston faced a number of challenges with its bike share system – some stations frequently had no available bikes while others were completely full, total ridership was lower than expected, and access was limited in low-income and minority communities. To address these challenges, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help the city reshape the bike share system through the procurement of a new system operator. The procurement implemented performance metrics that better capture the user experience, improved system operations by balancing operator oversight and flexibility, and recruited private financing for the system expansion. As a result, Boston and neighboring municipalities will expand the bike share network by more than 70 stations over the next two years without spending additional public dollars, increase access for low-income and minority communities by reaching new neighborhoods, and incorporate new procedures to improve the user experience.

Develop a framework for prioritizing capital works projects across multiple departments

As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Boston improve its vendor diversity by contracting with more Minority- and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs).

Boston aimed to increase the racial and gender diversity of its vendors. The city established concrete vendor diversity goals and, with pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, created a performance tracking system to monitor progress, streamline procurement practices to improve accessibility and transparency, and expanded technical assistance for diverse vendors. Initial signs, including an increase in vendor diversity for maintenance contracts, suggests that these strategies are working. Additionally, the city launched a New Small Business Center to serve as a one-stop resource for small business owners and entrepreneurs, providing professional training, networking, and one-on-one coaching sessions.

While Massachusetts has some of the highest educational performance in the country, the state continues to face challenges in supporting the employment and career success of English language learners and those who have not achieved high school credentials. With pro bono technical assistance from the GPL, Massachusetts launched a project to provide vocationally-oriented adult basic education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services to approximately 2,000 adults over the course of three years. The program is expected to improve earnings and education outcomes for participants.

In 2012, Massachusetts was home to 1,200 chronically homeless individuals, who were among the highest utilizers of expensive emergency services such as shelter, hospital, and jail beds. To better serve this population, the Massachusetts Supportive Housing Pay for Success project aimed to shift spending on homelessness away from temporary shelters towards permanent supportive housing. The GPL worked with project partners to remove funding barriers, allowing for the establishment of 500 housing units across the state and greater access to wraparound, community-based services for the chronically homeless.