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How's Palatine doing? New tracking program lets residents know

Twenty-four sets of data ranging from how quickly Palatine's first responders get to the scene of an emergency to how much money the village spends removing snow are now available for public viewing on the village's website.

The data is the first iteration of a new program called Palatine 24/7, through which the village will compile data on 24 subjects across the seven categories of village services, including fire protection, police, infrastructure, community services, financial management, economic development and administration.

The data, which is current through 2015, was uploaded to www.palatine.il.us Thursday afternoon, but village staff members presented much of it to the village council Monday.

“We've said for years, 'We're really good at this, we're really good at that,'” Mayor Jim Schwantz said. “Now we have data to back it up.”

Most of the data in the first version of Palatine 24/7 includes statistics going back to 2011 so the public can better get a sense of how the areas of service are trending.

For example, the data shows that the rate at which the fire department responded to emergencies in less than 6½ minutes climbed 3.6 percentage points last year over 2014, finishing just under its goal of 90 percent. The village staff chalked up the improvement to the department's increased work with other firefighting agencies, including an expanded relationship with the Palatine Rural and Rolling Meadows fire departments.

“We're trying to identify key performance areas and present the data that tells a story of how the village is working,” Deputy Village Manager Mike Jacobs said Thursday.

Village Manager Reid Ottesen said officials plan on updating the data twice a year, probably in March during their presentation of the final budget report for the previous year and in the fall during the discussion of the next budget cycle.

This data set on village police's average response time is one of 24 sets in the first iteration of Palatine 24/7, a new performance tracking program unveiled this week. Courtesy of the Village of Palatine
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