Last Tuesday, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners approved its newest strategic plan, which will clarify and outline the County’s goals, values and priorities for the next four years.
The County hired BerryDunn, a national consulting firm, to help determine the six strategic goals included in the plan: environmental protection and climate action, healthy community, housing for all, multi-modal transportation, public education and a diverse and vibrant economy.
Sally Greene, the BOCC vice chair, said the plan’s strategic goals naturally emerged through the plan's development process.
“It was a very useful and productive process to gain public input in the process to give us a check to know that we’re responding to community interest and to our own priorities and values,” she said.
To ensure the success of the plan, the BOCC has established performance measures — concrete targets the County plans to achieve within four years, Greene said. The BOCC decided to establish a subcommittee of staff members and three commissioners to improve the plan’s success criteria to refine performance measures.
Travis Myren, the deputy county manager, said the subcommittee will likely be officially created during the BOCC's meeting on March 19.
Myren said that in the next couple of months, the County will focus on ensuring that its capital budget and operating budget align with the plan’s six priorities.
“As the board makes budgetary decisions, I would expect that each of the goals is probably included in some way, shape or form depending on the policy initiatives at the time,” he said.
The strategic plan will update community members monthly, quarterly, biannually and annually. The County will collect feedback at regular periods and use it to revise its objectives.
