OMB

A couple of recent pieces of research may provide some insight-- and caution -- in attempts to implement performance budgeting.  The first piece looks at challenges raised internally within agencies by professional tensions between finance, performance, and budget personnel in cities in North Carolina, and the second piece looks at the perspectives of local elected officials in Denmark.

Federal Priority Goal Reviews.  According to the Senate committee report, the new law: 

“attempts to lay out a process for reviewing progress towards the federal government priority goals on, at minimum, a quarterly basis. For each federal government priority goal, the Director of OMB should review the progress achieved during the most recent quarter and the likelihood of meeting the performance target.

The original GPRA requires OMB to develop a governmentwide annual performance plan.  OMB chose to designate the President’s budget as meeting that requirement.   Separately, GAO’s 2004 report recommended a governmentwide strategic plan, but OMB saw that as infeasible.  The new law attempts another approach.

Agency Performance Updates.  According to the Senate committee report, the new law:

“. . . requires agencies to provide a performance update at least annually, occurring no later than 150 days after the end of the fiscal year. However, agencies are encouraged to provide more frequent updates that would provide significant value to the federal government, Congress, or – as noted in the statute:  “. . . program partners at a reasonable level of administrative burden.” 

Agency Annual Performance Plans.  The Senate committee report notes:  “GPRA requires executive agencies to develop annual performance plans covering each program activity in the agencies’ budgets.”

It continues, noting that the new law:

Agency Strategic Plans.  According to the Senate committee report accompanying the new law:

Background.  Congress recently passed – and President Obama just signed -- legislation updating the nearly 20-year-old Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).  This update effort started several years ago through the efforts of Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) then evolved more recently with support from Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and

Why?  Because prizes are effective.  Under the right circumstances, they can be more effective than traditional investments in research and development.

Lowery says: “After falling out of favor for decades, such high-publicity, fat-reward contest came into vogue again in the aughts in the wake of the 1996 Ansari X Prize for advances in commercial spaceflight” which Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne won in 2004.

1.      Congress Hits Refresh Button on the Results Act (October 5, 2010)

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) summarized the need for a refresh when he introduced his bill with bipartisan support:  "Producing information does not by itself improve performance and experts from both sides of the aisle agree that the solutions developed in 1993 have not worked.”

A new law signed into law in March requires the White House and agencies to designate government-wide and agency-level transition teams long before the election.  These teams are to help both the outgoing as well as the incoming administrations. What have been their efforts to date, and what can be expected after the election?