Rating communities' performance

Michael Mansur and Rick Montgomery of The Kansas City Star used Data Envelopment Analysis to analyze the budget and performance numbers from 18 area cities and rank how efficiently they provided eight municipal services. "Four cities tied in police services: Belton, Grandview, Liberty and Prairie Village. Three cities tied in fire and fire-and-ambulance services: Belton, Gladstone and Liberty. Four cities tied in municipal court services: Gladstone, Lawrence, Lenexa and Shawnee" The newspaper found most cities aren't doing well scoring themselves or even keeping key data, much less weighing it all against nearby peers. Read more about how the story was reported.