The City of Carlsbad (hereinafter, “the city”) is known for providing an extremely high quality of service. The city consistently receives a high level of satisfaction from residents in its annual public opinion survey. The most recent survey, from 2011, showed that 98 percent of residents rate the city’s quality of life as good or excellent, and 94 percent are satisfied with the job the city is doing providing services. The challenge facing the City of Carlsbad is how to maintain these excellent ratings while addressing the very real concerns of a volatile economy and increasing labor and related variable costs. To address this challenge, the city recently created a Best Value Services program. This program aligns with the city’s strategic focus area of being a sustainable organization – i.e., being an adaptable, responsive, and efficient organization that delivers cost effective, high quality services. In other words, a sustainable city organization is one that provides the best quality at lowest cost.