U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

65–545 cc WASHINGTON : 

" ! SENATE 106TH CONGRESS

2d Session

REPORT

2000

106–347

SPECIAL REPORT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ON THE

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND

RESULTS ACT OF 1993

JULY 18, 2000—Ordered to be printed
(II)

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri

SLADE GORTON, Washington

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky

CONRAD BURNS, Montana

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas

JON KYL, Arizona

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey

TOM HARKIN, Iowa

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

HARRY REID, Nevada

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin

PATTY MURRAY, Washington

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

STEVEN J. CORTESE, Staff Director

LISA SUTHERLAND, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES H. ENGLISH, Minority Staff Director
(III)

CONTENTS

Page

I. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1

Legislative History ........................................................................................... 1

Implementation ................................................................................................. 3

II. Statement of Purpose ......................................................................................... 7

III. Subcommittee Analysis ..................................................................................... 8

Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and Related Agencies .. 8

Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary and Related

Agencies ......................................................................................................... 17

Subcommittee on Defense ................................................................................ 23

Subcommittee on Military Construction ......................................................... 33

Subcommittee on District of Columbia ........................................................... 34

Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development ....................................... 39

Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related

Agencies ......................................................................................................... 42

Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies ........................................... 46

Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education,

and Related Agencies .................................................................................... 52

Subcommittee on Transportation .................................................................... 63

Subcommittee on Treasury and General Government .................................. 67

Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and

Independent Agencies ................................................................................... 82

IV. Program Duplication and Overlap ................................................................... 90

V. Observations and Conclusion ............................................................................. 95

(1)

1S. Rept. No. 103–58 at p. 2. 2Section 2(b)(1) of Pub. L. No. 103–62, 107 Stat. 285. 3While the Results Act was enacted in August 1993, it provided a long lead time for agencies

to prepare for its implementation. For example, during the period between August 1993 and

submission of the first round of strategic plans in September 1997, agencies conducted performance measurement pilot programs to test the Act’s concepts. Agencies also consulted with Congress on their draft strategic plans during the Spring and Summer of 1997. 4 5 U.S.C. 306.

I. INTRODUCTION

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND

RESULTS ACT

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, commonly referred to as ‘‘GPRA’’ or the ‘‘Results Act,’’ was enacted

with the broad, bipartisan support of both Congress and the Executive Branch. The Results Act originated from Senate Bill No. 20,

introduced by Senator Roth and co-sponsored by several other Senators during the 103rd Congress. The Senate Governmental Affairs

Committee favorably reported the bill by voice vote on June 16,

1993 (S. Rept. No. 103–58). Both the Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill by unanimous consent, and it was

signed into law by the President on August 3, 1993 (Public Law

103–62).

The Act is designed to respond to widespread concern that the

Federal Government has not been held accountable for delivering

the level and quality of results anticipated by the American people.

The Governmental Affairs Committee report which accompanies S.

20 evidences this concern as follows:

‘‘a recent public opinion poll*** shows that Americans, on average, believe that as much as 48 cents out of

every Federal tax dollar is wasted. In other words, the

public believes that it is not getting the level and quality

of government service for which it is paying.’’ 1

Thus, the first Congressional statement of purpose of the Act was

‘‘to improve the confidence of the American people in the capability

of the Federal Government, by systematically holding Federal

agencies accountable for achieving program results.’’ 2

The three cornerstones of the Results Act are strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual performance reports:

—Strategic plans.—Agencies, in consultation with Congress, are

required to develop 5-year strategic plans that must contain:

(1) a comprehensive mission statement for the agency and (2)

long term results-oriented goals covering each of its major

functions. The initial agency strategic plans were submitted to

the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] and Congress in

September 1997.3 Strategic plans must be updated at least

every 3 years. The first updates are due in September 2000.4
2

5 31 U.S.C. 1115.

6 31 U.S.C. 1116.

—Annual performance plans.—Agencies are required to prepare

annual performance plans that: (1) establish performance goals

for the applicable fiscal year, which generally must be expressed in an objective, quantifiable, and measurable form; (2)

briefly describe the means and strategies needed to meet the

goals; and (3) describe the means used to verify and validate

performance. In addition to the agency plans, OMB submits an

annual government-wide performance plan as part of the President’s budget. The first round of agency performance plans and

the first government-wide performance plan were submitted in

February 1998 and apply to fiscal year 1999.5

—Annual performance reports.—Agencies are required to prepare

annual performance reports that review the agency’s success in

achieving its performance goals for the applicable fiscal year

and explain and describe where performance goals have not

been met. The first round of annual performance reports is due

by March 31, 2000, and will cover the agency performance

goals for fiscal year 1999.6

Collectively, the strategic and performance plans and the performance reports establish a comprehensive system of accountability through which agencies articulate what they are trying to

accomplish, how they will accomplish it, and how Congress and the

public will know whether they are succeeding. The emphasis of the

Results Act is on shifting performance measures from process (e.g.,

number of regulations issued) to results (e.g., safer workplaces).

Without results measures, it is impossible to determine which programs are working and which are not.

One fundamental purpose of the Results Act is to link Federal

funding decisions to program performance. The Appropriations

Committee has a key role and responsibility to help ensure that

this purpose of the Act is fulfilled. Accordingly, the Committee intends to conduct active oversight of the implementation of the Results Act. In his opening statement at a June 24, 1997 joint hearing on implementation of the Results Act before the Senate Appropriations and Governmental Affairs Committees, Senator Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, emphasized the potential that the Results Act holds and the determination of Appropriations Committee Members to see it realized:

‘‘The American public has demanded an end to inefficient and wasteful spending by the Federal government.

The American public has demanded a balanced budget.

Our responsibility on the Appropriations Committee is to

provide adequate funding for those programs that are a

proper responsibility of the Federal government. With the

Results Act, we can ask other important questions about

Federal programs, such as what will the program accomplish, what will it cost to accomplish it, how will the results be achieved, and how will the agency monitor the

program’s effectiveness. If properly implemented, the Results Act can assist Congress in identifying and eliminating duplicate or ineffective programs. Congress intends
3

7The Government Performance and Results Act: 1997 Governmentwide Implementation Will Be

Uneven, GAO/GGD–97–109 (June 1997), at p. 5. 8The Act specifically requires agencies to consult with Congress, as well as other agency

stakeholders, when developing their strategic plans. 5 U.S.C. 306(d). 9Managing For Results: Agencies’ Annual Performance Plans Can Help Address Strategic

Planning Challenges, GAO/GGD–98–44 (January 1998), at p. 3.

to monitor compliance with the Results Act every step of

the way to ensure that agencies are providing us with the

information necessary to do our job of safeguarding the

taxpayers’ money.’’

This report, which evaluates agency performance plans for fiscal

year 2000, is issued in furtherance of the Committee’s commitment

to monitor agency compliance with the Results Act.

IMPLEMENTATION

Although the Results Act was enacted in August 1993, its first

major implementation step, submission of the initial round of strategic plans, did not occur until September 1997. The Act provided

this long lead time to give agencies the opportunity to prepare for

the many implementation challenges. Unfortunately, few agencies

took advantage of the opportunity. A GAO report issued on the eve

of the strategic plan submissions found that:

‘‘many agencies did not appear to be well positioned to

provide in 1997 a results-oriented answer to the fundamental Results Act question: What are we accomplishing?’’ 7

Draft strategic plans.—This assessment was confirmed when

agencies submitted their draft strategic plans for Congressional

consultations, in accordance with the Results Act.8 With GAO’s assistance, cross-jurisdictional, bipartisan Congressional teams set up

to facilitate consultations reviewed the draft plans. The results

were very disappointing. Most of the plans reviewed did not even

contain the minimal six elements expressly required by the law.

The seeming inattention to the draft plans was particularly surprising since Congress had signaled the high priority it attached to

them. Specifically, the leaders of both Houses of Congress stressed

the importance of the strategic plans and laid out detailed expectations for them in a letter to the Director of OMB dated February

25, 1997. With respect to agency performance plans, the letter emphasized that, in order to be useful to Congress, the plans should

be timely and ‘‘should provide a complete and clear picture of what

an agency intends to accomplish with a given level of resources.’’

Final strategic plans.—The final strategic plans submitted in

September 1997 produced both good and bad news. The good news

was that most agencies responded to the Congressional critiques

and made significant improvements in their drafts. All of the final

plans reviewed by GAO and the Congressional teams complied with

the minimal legal requirements of the Results Act.

The bad news was that the final plans remained, in the words

of GAO, ‘‘very much a work in progress.’’ 9 Furthermore, because of

the extreme deficiencies of the draft plans, the Congressional consultation process with agencies had been diverted from the substantive policy dialog that the Act envisioned to a major effort sim-
4

10Managing for Results: An Agenda to Improve the Usefulness of Agencies’ Annual Performance Plans, GAO/GGD–AIMD–98–228 (July 1998), at p. 3. 11Managing for Results: Opportunities for Continued Improvements in Agencies’ Performance

Plans, GAO/GGD/AIMD–99–215 (July 1999).

ply to ensure that the plans complied with the technical requirements of the law.

Fiscal year 1999 performance plans.—The first round of performance plans, which covered fiscal year 1999, were submitted in February 1998 as scheduled. However, GAO and Congressional evaluations of those performance plans found they tended to repeat, instead of rectify, the shortcomings of the strategic plans. A June 9,

1998 letter from Congressional leaders to the Director of OMB listed the following major recurring problem areas in the plans: —The strategic plans did not lay a good foundation for the performance plans. —The depth and breadth of data problems facing most agencies

became even more pronounced in the performance plans. —Performance goals and measures were not as results-oriented

as they should have been; some goals were not even objective,

quantifiable, or measurable. —The plans failed to link performance goals and measures to individual programs and day-to-day agency activities. —The performance plans showed little evidence of coordinating

cross-cutting programs and activities. —Few agency performance plans dealt effectively with major

management problems.

A subsequent GAO report on its evaluations of the fiscal year

1999 performance plans reiterated the same concerns:

‘‘Most of the plans that we reviewed contained major

weaknesses that undermined their usefulness in that they

(1) did not consistently provide clear pictures of agencies’

intended performance, (2) generally did not relate strategies and resources to performance, and (3) provided limited

confidence that agencies’ performance data will be sufficiently credible.’’ 10

Fiscal year 2000 performance plans.—In February 1999, Federal

agencies submitted their second round of annual performance

plans, which cover fiscal year 2000. GAO once again reviewed the

performance plans for the 24 Cabinet departments and major independent agencies and reported its findings.11 GAO found that, on

the whole, the fiscal year 2000 plans showed ‘‘moderate improvements’’ over the fiscal year 1999 plans and contained better information and perspective. However, according to GAO, ‘‘key weaknesses’’ remain and important opportunities exist to improve future

plans. Specifically, GAO listed the following key weaknesses in the

plans:

—Attention to mission-critical management challenges and program risks is not consistent.

—Coordination of crosscutting program areas needs additional effort.

—Presentations of how agencies’ human capital and management

resources and strategies will be used to achieve results are insufficient.
5

12 Id. at p. 7 (Emphasis supplied.) 13 Id., p. 13.

—Confidence that performance data will be credible is limited.

It is a positive sign that most agencies are improving their plans

and moving in the direction of becoming more performance-based.

However, the key weaknesses in most of this year’s plans are largely the same ones as last year—lack of credible performance data,

lack of specific commitments to solve major management problems,

and failure to coordinate overlapping programs.

With respect to data reliability, GAO found that 20 of the 24

major agencies’ fiscal year 2000 plans provided little confidence

that they could produce credible performance data. Even for the

other four agencies, GAO expressed less than full confidence in the

credibility of their performance data. The GAO report stresses the

seriousness of this problem:

‘‘The inattention to ensuring that performance data will

be sufficiently timely, complete, accurate, useful, and consistent is an important weakness in the performance

plans. Ultimately, performance plans will not be useful to

congressional decision makers unless and until this key

weakness is resolved.’’12 (emphasis added)

The same data problems associated with the performance plans

threaten to undermine the usefulness of the upcoming Results Act

performance reports. Therefore, it is essential that these problems

be remedied if the Results Act is to accomplish its fundamental

purpose of demonstrating to the American people what the Federal

government is accomplishing in a concrete and credible way.

With respect to major management problems, GAO found that

agency fiscal year 2000 plans adopted specific and measurable performance goals to address only about 40 percent of the core management problems in their fiscal year 2000 performance plans.

Core management problems seriously undermine the Federal government’s performance and leave it vulnerable to billions of dollars

in waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. The GAO report

noted that these problems ‘‘must be addressed as part of any serious effort to fundamentally improve the performance of Federal

agencies.’’ 13 The key to addressing them is for agencies to adopt

specific performance commitments for which they can be held accountable under the Results Act. There is much room for improvement here.

The Federal government is rife with overlapping agencies and

multiple programs directed at the same problems. Congress has

emphasized the need for agencies to develop complementary performance goals and measures, both to ensure consistency among

overlapping programs and to provide a basis for comparing performance results. Yet, GAO found that few of the fiscal year 2000

performance plans discussed strategies for coordinating overlapping

programs and establishing complementary performance goals and

measures. The Results Act strategic and performance planning requirements offer the ideal opportunity to develop shared performance goals and indicators and provide an excellent venue for coordinating crosscutting programs.
6

Need for OMB leadership.—Congress has repeatedly stressed the

need for greater leadership by OMB to strengthen implementation

of the Results Act and enhance the usefulness of Results Act plans

and information. However, leadership by OMB has not been forthcoming. Indeed, quite the opposite has occurred. One example of

this is OMB’s failure to meet its specific statutory obligations with

regard to performance budgeting pilots. Section 6(c) of the Results

Act, codified at 31 U.S.C. 1119, required the Director of OMB to

designate not less than five agencies as pilot projects in performance budgeting for fiscal years 1998 and 1999. Despite the specific

requirements of the law, OMB informed Congressional leaders in

a letter dated May 20, 1997, that it was ‘‘delaying the start’’ of the

pilots until 1999 in order to ‘‘allow agencies to concentrate on the

more immediate task of developing their performance plans.’’ OMB

did not designate the pilots in 1999 either, and now says they will

be designated in fiscal year 2000.

This Committee wishes to reiterate the need for OMB to provide

strong leadership and support to agencies in implementing the Results Act. The Committee also wishes to express its specific concern

over OMB’s failure to meet its statutory obligations for the performance budgeting pilots. As discussed previously, linking funding

decisions to program performance is a key purpose of the Results

Act. This is also a very challenging task. The performance budgeting pilots constitute the important first step for testing different

approaches to this task—and a step that cannot be delayed further.
(7)

II. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

This special report by the Senate Appropriations Committee analyzes the impact of the Results Act on the appropriations process.

The report addresses by subcommittee the following :

—An evaluation of agency goals and measures for its key programs and activities to determine whether the goals and measures are results-oriented, reasonably challenging, and subject

to reliable measurement;

—An examination of cross-cutting programs and activities and

duplicative programs and activities;

—An analysis of agency information sources and agency data reliability;

—An examination of the status of high risk problems within certain agencies;

—A review of the consultation process between agencies and the

Appropriations Committee staff; and

—An evaluation of the usefulness of the performance plans to the

Committee staff.

The report does not cover every Federal entity covered by the Results Act. However, it does review those agencies which are responsible for major Federal programs and activities and, as a result,

have sizable budget requests presented to Congress.

The production of this report has given Committee staff an opportunity to better understand the purpose and requirements of the

Results Act. Its production has further served as an incentive for

Committee staff to communicate with agency personnel on agency

compliance with the Results Act’s requirements. And, finally, both

Committee members and staff have engaged in a thoughtful analysis of the impact of the Results Act on the appropriations process.
(8)

III. SUBCOMMITTEE ANALYSIS

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, RURAL

DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

The Agricultural Research Service [ARS] has developed an outcome oriented strategic plan and, in accordance with GPRA

workgroup recommendations, streamlined its more than 1,100 research projects into 23 integrated National Research Programs in

order to more effectively manage the research program. The principal tool for moving the agency towards a greater focus on performance management is the full development and implementation

of these National Programs.

This organization of National Programs represents a complete

change in the way ARS manages its research program. In the ARS

Annual Performance Plan covering fiscal years 1999 and 2000, the

Agency specifically identifies performance measures that will be

met if Congress concurs with the budget request.

The 23 new National Programs are the principal components of

the Agency’s approach to programmatic accountability. The National Programs support the ARS Strategic Plan and are focused on

specific short and long term goals. Performance information is the

basis of the Annual Performance Report. The National Programs

unit also plans to comprehensively review its performance information data gathering efforts before it begins to collect information on

fiscal year 1999 performance.

The goals and measures of the ARS are focused on the most important objectives of the agency. For example, one of the agency’s

goals is to ensure an adequate food supply and improved detection,

surveillance, prevention, and educational programs for the American public’s health, safety, and well-being. Through this goal ARS

will work to improve vegetable oils, decrease dependence on herbicides, improve crop pollination, and develop a vaccine for

bloodborne bacterial disease or farm raised foodfish. These goals

and measures are results-oriented to help improve the safety and

health of agricultural products. These goals are challenging and

can realistically be met and are subject to reliable measurement.

As far as cross-cutting programs and activities, the ARS will develop scientifically defensible guidelines and decisionmaking tools

to assist the Natural Resources Conservation Service [NRCS] in developing nutrient management plans for phosphorus and animal

manure application. Tools will be provided to establish

agronomically and environmentally sound threshold soil phosphorus levels, determine phosphorus-based manure application

rates, and select effective remedial strategies to minimize phos-
9

phorus loss to surface waters. This will assist States and national

regulatory agencies in meeting their mandates to revise the nutrient management planning process of Confirmed Animal Feeding

Operations and provide criteria for managing nutrients in water

bodies as requested in the Clean Water Action Plan. Also, ARS will

finalize the development of methods with NRCS to reduce the

transport of weed seeds, microbes, and pathogens in water

flocculants.

The performance goals specified in the Annual Performance

Plans are directly linked to the agency’s Strategic Plan in order to

develop a consistent internal movement towards more outcome-oriented research. ARS has demonstrated its commitment to programmatic accountability through this internal change as well as

its action in developing an Annual Performance Plan for fiscal

years 1999 and 2000, one year ahead of the statutory requirement.

After considerable internal studies and discussions with other

Federal research agencies, ARS determined that it could not effectively display its research accomplishments or the reliability or

credibility of its research through empirical or numerical metrics as

sought by GPRA. These methods were attempted, but the results

did not remotely address the intent of GPRA. After arriving at this

conclusion, ARS requested a waiver under GPRA in order to use

a narrative approach to demonstrate this information. This request

was approved by OMB. The result was the identification of approximately 150 specific anticipated accomplishments for each year that,

if achieved, will allow ARS to meet its performance goals.

The creation of National Programs as well as the other performance goals of ARS will prove useful in strengthening the interaction between ARS and its customers, partners, and stockholders.

This process of goal setting and achievement will also be key in

demonstrating to the Subcommittee the value of funding and dedication of the ARS to progress through the agency’s specific request

and demonstration of need.

Although ARS is an agency making strides to comply with GPRA

regulations, its performance plan, when evaluated, left some things

to be desired. While its report contained objective, measurable, and

quantifiable goals, it lacked the means to measure progress in certain areas. The plan lacked baseline and interim performance data

needed to ascertain progress toward meeting goals. One example of

this is the clarity of the linkage between performance and strategic

goals. In addition to these shortcomings, ARS’s performance in the

areas of consultation and interaction with the Subcommittee have

been less than satisfactory.

FARM SERVICE AGENCY

The goal of the Farm Service Agency’s [FSA] is to provide an economic safety net through farm income support to eligible producers, cooperatives, and associations to: (1) help improve the economic stability and viability of the agricultural sector, and (2) ensure the production of an adequate and reasonably priced supply

of food and fiber. In addition, FSA works to enhance the economic

safety net for farmers and ranchers and to open, expand, and maintain global market opportunities for agricultural producers. The

goals and measures are results-oriented because FSA is working to
10

improve the effectiveness and efficiency of commodity acquisition,

procurement, storage, and distribution activities to support domestic and international food assistance programs, and to administer

the U.S. Warehouse Act. These goals are reasonably challenging

and can be realistically met.

FSA’s performance plan provided a clear picture of the Agency’s

intended performance across the agency, including a means to

measure progress towards expected performance. This agency was

also recognized for its crosscutting effort with the Commodity Credit Corporation to protect communities’ water supplies against

chemical contamination; to this end, both FSA and the Corporation

operate hazardous waste management programs. Although FSA’s

performance plan briefly discusses both programs, the plan does

not address whether or how activities under these programs will be

coordinated to ensure that the programs work in concert to achieve

their common goal. In a similar fashion, FSA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service [NRCS] each administer programs designed to take environmentally sensitive lands out of production to,

among other things, conserve soil, protect water quality and provide habitat for wildlife. Once again, while each agency’s performance plan describes these programs, neither of the two describes

the correlation between the two.

The FSA has taken several specific steps to comply with the Results Act. One of its major steps has been the installation of the

Senior Management and Controls Committee [SMCC]. This committee provides leadership, commitment, and guidance to the agency’s strategic planning program. The committee also provides strategic direction for the agency by establishing strategic goals; overseeing development and implementation of Agency Strategic and

Annual Performance Plans; and communicating GPRA results to

Congress, the Administration, customers, and other stakeholders.

The Agency also established the Strategic Management and Corporate Operations Staff within the Office of the Administrator,

which works closely with the SMCC to carry out the Agency’s strategic management initiatives. The FSA established key contacts in

each program and administrative area that are responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring performance goals and

measures. In compliance with GPRA requirements, FSA developed

a Strategic Plan for fiscal years 1997–2002 and Annual Performance Plans for fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

The Farm Loan Program annual performance goals and measures are reflected in the goals for each State. These goals and

measures were developed to achieve the desired results outlined in

the strategic plan. The State Executive Director for each State is

held responsible for achieving these goals. This is just one example

of FSA practicing performance-based business.

Another example is the complete review of the Agency’s commodity procurement and licensing and examination procedures

being conducted by the Deputy Administrator for Commodity Operations. This review involves industry and customer interviews, development and analysis of alternative ways of conducting these

functions, and cost analysis of such alternatives. This review will

result in recommendations to improve the efficiency and performance of the licensing and procurement operations, and the review
11

team will learn the importance of knowing what customers want

and being pro-active in meeting customers’ needs.

Additionally, FSA’s Administrator has a separate performance

agreement on Equal Employment Opportunity/Civil Rights [EEO/

CR] which includes specific goals and measures by which the Administrator will be rated. The Agency’s Deputy Administrators’ Performance Plan contains a performance element and standards

directly linked to accomplishment of the Administrator’s EEO/CR

goals.

Performance information is being used to manage this agency.

Starting in June 1999, program managers were responsible for

monitoring performance data and submitting quarterly reports to

the Strategic Management and Corporate Operations Staff. Monitoring performance on a quarterly basis allows the Agency to make

adjustments in a timely manner, helping to ensure achievement of

performance goals.

The FSA has become a more performance-oriented agency, as evidenced by the amount of direct program changes it has made in

both farm and commodity related programs. In addition to these

changes, FSA has gone to great lengths to install internal systems

to achieve these performance goals.

The Annual Performance Plan encompasses all program activities included in the agency’s budget request and reflects the program activities associated with identified goals. This linkage enables decision makers to assess the full time equivalent positions

and funding requirements of achieving annual performance goals.

Performance goals were developed for each FSA budget account.

These measures are incorporated in budget material to indicate expected performance to be achieved based on available funding. The

FSA has no plans to make changes to this structure in the near

future since this direct linkage is sufficient to analyze performance

and meet GPRA requirements.

FSA was not able to report the balance of its data by the deadline specified by GPRA for the fiscal year 2000 performance plan.

The areas where data is not specified and a reason for the lack of

data are going to be included in the Annual Performance Report,

accompanied by an explanation supporting the reason data is unavailable and anticipated time frames to obtain the data.

During the period that the Subcommittee was making funding

decisions, there was no consultation or interaction with FSA staff.

There was no agency input to help the Subcommittee understand

FSA’s reasoning for funding requests or intentions. The information provided in the performance plan was moderately useful but

had minimal influence on funding decisions.

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

The Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has focused on the

most important objectives of its programs by its strategic goal to

reduce the possibility of food-related injuries and improve the

health and well being of consumers by ensuring that decisions related to approving petitions and notifications are scientifically justified and benefit the public health. One of the most important program strategic goals of the FDA is to reduce human suffering and

enhance the quality of public health by providing quicker access to
12

important, lifesaving drugs, and to assure the American public of

the availability of safe and effective drugs. The goals and measures

are results-oriented because they seek to improve the safety of

foods, human drugs, and medical devices. The goals and measures

are challenging because of the complexities faced in making available a safe and effective drug supply. The goal of ensuring timely

review for medical devices can be met, but a backlog of drug approvals still exists. The goals and measures are subject to reliable

measurement and are also balanced among competing demands.

The FDA and the Food Safety and Inspection Service [FSIS] demonstrate cross-cutting programs and activities as they both safeguard the public interest in food safety.

The FDA expects to have reliable data for each performance goal.

Depending on the nature of the goal statement, either metric, milestone or system improvement, the data will be presented either numerically or descriptively. Strengths, weaknesses, or other qualifying statements will provide additional information about the

agency’s performance toward the goal. FDA’s Office of Planning

and Evaluation produces guidance documents and training programs and arranges individual consultations with program managers to promote good performance planning practices. An important aspect of that guidance has been information about data reliability, verification and validation. Since March 2000 will be the

first time that results will be reported, there was a considerable

amount of discussion during calendar year 1999 on strategies to assure data reliability. FDA acknowledges that by the time they report on the fiscal year 2000 performance goals in 2001, they expect

to be more proficient at managing and reporting performance information. The agency did not consult with the Subcommittee on its

performance plan. The FDA’s performance plan is more informative

than other performance plans that have been reviewed. However,

much information is presented, and it is a bit overwhelming.

FOOD AND NUTRITION SERVICE

The Food and Nutrition Service [FNS] has a Strategic Plan

which outlines the goals it plans to achieve incrementally by fiscal

year 2002. The agency has also developed the fiscal years 1999 and

2000 Annual Performance Plans, which support the Strategic Plan

and specify annual goals and objectives.

FNS has incorporated most program and policy changes into its

annual performance plan. Goals are results-oriented and linked to

the specific budget requests. The resources required to achieve

these goals are provided in the Annual Performance Plans at the

strategic goal level. A matrix format is used to link these resources

to the major program activities outlined in the Program and Financing schedules.

The agency’s performance goals show that coordination exists

among other agencies in USDA and the Government regarding its

programs and activities. These include the project FNS is coordinating with the States and the Electronic Benefits Transfer Council

of the National Automated Clearinghouse Association, and the Social Security Administration to ensure that food stamp benefits are

not issued to the deceased, and the Economic Research Service

[ERS] which manages the research programs for the food assist-
13

ance programs at FNS. FNS has made a strong effort not to duplicate research programs performed by the ERS.

FNS uses data such as Food Stamp Program participation, school

lunch and breakfast meal service data, general economic indicators,

and demographic data as the basis for budget projections. The program performance data generates the necessary information to support its performance plan and budget requests. However, FNS does

have a number of performance indicators for which reliable data

will not be available for inclusion in the first Annual Performance

Report because validation of administrative data is not possible by

using evaluations or other independent mechanisms. The agency is

working to revise its strategic plan to better reflect its unifying

mission and purposes and to make the plan more useful as a strategic management tool. The agency claims that the loss of funding

for studies and evaluations to ERS has significantly hampered its

ability to develop new analytical and evaluation tools to measure

and report performance.

FNS has faced the task of cracking down on fraud, waste, and

abuse associated with the Food Stamp Program for many years.

Several reports from the Office of Inspector General and the GAO

have addressed this problem. The agency faces this fraud and

waste by overpayments to food stamp recipients and by food stamp

trafficking. The agency’s performance goals include an increase of

38 States delivering food stamp benefits through the Electronic

Benefits Transfer which is thought to decrease the trafficking of

food stamps. The performance goals also reflect the agency’s dependence on grocery stores to properly handle food stamps as an

external factor that affects the agency’s ability to achieve this goal.

To address this, the plan cites that the agency promulgated rules

for participating stores to follow and instituted a system of sanctions that may be applied to stores that violate the rules.

The Subcommittee was not consulted regarding the agency’s performance plan. The agency is currently integrating all of its current

planning activities, including the development and execution of

strategic and annual performance plans, into a single process that

will involve all FNS staff including the budget staff. This will ensure that all the employees involved with Federal nutrition assistance will understand and achieve the agency’s key goals and objectives.

The agency does not plan to make any changes in the account

structure since the current budget structure is set up by major program and account activity. The performance plan is informative to

the Subcommittee and is useful in providing oversight and making

budget decisions for the FNS because the linkage with the goals

and plan cross-link to the budget priorities presented in the President’s budget request.

NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE

One of the main performance goals of the Natural Resources

Conservation Service [NRCS] is a healthy and productive land that

sustains food and fiber production and functioning watersheds and

natural systems, enhances the environment, and improves urban

and rural landscapes. The achievement of these performance goals

supports achievement of USDA’s goal to promote sustainable pro-
14

duction of food and fiber products while maintaining a quality environment and strong natural resource base. The goals and measures

are results-oriented through assistance to producers to: (1) plan

and apply systems to protect and enhance cropland and grazing

lands, (2) protect water against agricultural nonpoint sources of

pollution, (3) protect watersheds against flood damages, and (4)

preserve land for agricultural use. All of NRCS’s goals are challenging and can be realistically met.

The performance goals established in the agency performance

plan are cross-cutting goals that are supported by multiple activities in the budget structure. The performance goals provide a way

for managers and the public to see the outcome on the landscape

that results from the agency’s services that are funded through

separate accounts. This comprehensive view of agency performance

is not possible when performance is measured program-by-program.

The agency performance plans for fiscal years 1999 and 2000 include a summary table that quantifies the relationship between

each program and resource objective in the agency strategic plan.

For programs that support multiple objectives, however, allocation

among objectives is only estimated. The combined data that will be

available from the new time and attendance reporting system, the

performance measurement system and the workload analysis activity will provide information for planning and will be the basis for

allocation of funds, enabling managers to ensure that funds and

time are expended on the objectives that were intended.

In addition to the cross-cutting goals, each program in the budget

structure continues to set program-specific goals for activities and

outputs that must be achieved in order to attain the higher-level

performance measures.

The Chief of the NRCS has ensured that there is a clear focus

on performance-based management at the highest level. The Chief

realigned the headquarters structure, consolidating responsibility

for strategic planning, performance planning and measurement,

budget allocation, and oversight and evaluation under a Deputy

Chief for Strategic Planning and Accountability. The new Deputy

Chief was directed to develop and implement a new accountability

system that would provide a balanced, reliable, and timely picture

of the agency’s performance. The system will enable agency managers to estimate the effect of programs on the condition of natural

resources systems, assess the cost-effectiveness of service delivery,

identify opportunities for process improvement, and respond to customers’ needs with strategies and assistance tailored to local conditions. Also, action has been taken to ensure that reliable high quality information is available to achieve performance-based management within NRCS. In fiscal year 1999, the agency began implementation of the new accountability system, which includes data in

three major categories.

Action has been taken to ensure that funding is linked to performance. New procedures are being implemented to define performance expectations when budgets are allocated to managers.

Agency-wide goals for key performance measures are set in the

agency performance plan, based on the long-term goals in the strategic plan. In addition, goals for program-specific activities or out-
15

puts are established. As the performance measurement system becomes fully operational, specific State goals will be established for

each performance measure. An appropriate element will be included in State and regional conservationists’ individual performance appraisals. The regional conservationists will monitor the

progress of States for which they are responsible and hold State

conservationists accountable for meeting goals. The Deputy Chief

for Strategic Planning and Accountability will monitor performance

nationally and report to the Associate Chief, who will hold Deputy

Chiefs and regional conservationists accountable.

Measurable long-term outcome strategic objectives that support

the agency’s mission are established in the strategic plan. Annual

performance goals are set to move toward achievement of the strategic goals and objectives. Line managers will be assigned responsibility for specific portions of each agency goal when they receive

their allocation for a fiscal year. They will develop operating budgets that use their funds and staff to meet the established goals and

conduct all activities needed to achieve the goals. Employees will

report their accomplishments on key performance measures on a

continuous basis and will report how their time was spent by program and major activity. Data will be available on a real-time basis

so that employees and first-line supervisors can monitor progress.

Senior managers will review performance and financial data periodically to ensure efficient and effective use of resources and to

take corrective action when necessary.

In addition to the changes in management information systems,

NRCS has established a team to analyze field office operations and

identify internally-imposed requirements and procedures that add

little value and reduce the time that front line staff can devote to

direct services to customers. NRCS is implementing the team’s recommendations, thus allowing employees to focus more attention on

directly serving customers and completing high priority conservation work.

NRCS is developing plans to ensure that all agency personnel

maintain the level of technical expertise essential to meeting goals.

An interdisciplinary team conducted a review of how the agency delivers appropriate conservation technology to field personnel and

made recommendations for improvement, which NRCS is implementing. A separate review of training for the field offices has resulted in a comprehensive catalog of available training, including

self-paced, satellite, agency-provided formal course-work, and nonagency training. The review made further recommendations for improving technical training.

When NRCS’s accountability system is fully implemented, it will

have more detailed information on results achieved and the time

required to achieve them by geographic area. NRCS will be able to

more accurately estimate expected performance at alternative levels of funding than was possible with information available earlier,

which generally supported only generalized national estimates.

NRCS will be able to identify the causes of any shortfall in expected performance and to determine corrective action needed.

Where reliable information demonstrates that performance shortfalls result from insufficient resources directed to a problem, NRCS
16

will provide Congress with a firm basis for making its decisions on

future funding.

The fiscal years 1999 and 2000 performance plans include a summary table that attempts to allocate all agency funds among the

natural resources objectives established in the strategic plan,

thereby indicating the full costs associated with the objective.

NRCS time and financial systems in the past have not been designed to track costs by resource outcome. Therefore, at present

NRCS can only estimate full costs of objectives.

NRCS has had two Results Act briefings for the Subcommittee

over the last fiscal year. The performance plan is informative and

will be extremely useful as a tool to pinpoint the agency’s use of

salaries and expenses, which is not specifically addressed in past

budget submissions.
(17)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE,

THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED AGENCIES

TITLE I—DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

The Justice Department is responsible for the investigation and

prosecution, the detention of those accused, and the imprisonment

of those convicted of Federal crimes. Justice also distributes billions of dollars in grants to State and local law enforcement agencies.

Justice has aggressively pursued the development of performance

measures. GPRA performance measures are a routine part of annual budget submissions. Component agency strategic plans, which

lay out core missions and goals, are used to formulate individual

‘‘contracts’’ for key managers. These contracts describe agency expectations for a given manager and are the basis upon which a

manager’s competence is judged.

The Subcommittee should exercise judgment in using GPRA-inspired performance measures to judge the success or failure of an

agency. Oftentimes, the easiest factors to quantify are the least revealing. For example, the number of arrests made by an agency is

easy to count and catalog. However, total arrests provide no insight

as to the quality of those arrests. To be of value, total arrests must

be cross-referenced with total successful prosecutions. Similarly,

performance measures can generate perverse outcomes at odds

with agency goals. In counting successful prosecutions, for example,

were tough but far-reaching prosecutions avoided in favor of easy

but insignificant cases in order to boost a score? Does counting

prosecutions prompt a ‘‘win at all cost’’ mentality among attorneys

that has nothing to do with the pursuit of justice? GPRA will not

eliminate the need for careful analysis on the part of the Subcommittee.

GPRA-generated data may also fail to address key Subcommittee

concerns. The single biggest concern the Subcommittee has with

Justice is the inability to get clear insight into the details of billions of dollars of ‘‘base’’ funds included in the Department’s budget. Performance measures matter little when the Subcommittee is

unable to ascertain how money is being spent beyond vague ‘‘object

classes’’ that obscure as much as they illuminate. For example,

though counter-terrorism is a core mission for Justice, though

reams of material on the strategies and tactics of combating terrorism have been generated, and though very definite measures of

effectiveness exist, the Subcommittee still cannot determine how

much money the FBI is spending on Special Weapons and Tactics

and sniper teams in its field offices and on the Hostage Rescue

Teams in Quantico, Virginia. GPRA is not well-suited to identify

budget issues.
18

TITLE II—DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND RELATED

AGENCIES

INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION

The International Trade Commission (the Commission) is a nonpartisan, quasi-judicial agency that serves as a fact-finder, investigator, and adjudicator with regard to Federal trade practices. The

Commission’s performance plan is comprehensive and includes

many good ideas on improving the Commission’s method of conducting its investigations and providing information to its users.

The goals stated in the plan do focus on the two most important

functions the Agency has: its adjudicative/investigative function

and its research/fact finding function. However, the performance

plan divides the Agency’s functions into five groups. The performance indicators for these groups seem to overlap for the investigations and then again for the research program, trade information

services, and trade policy support.

The performance goals are reasonably challenging and reflect a

balance among competing demands upon the Agency; yet, they do

not sufficiently link individual employee performance to the obligations of the Commission. The Results Act was implemented as a

means for government agencies to re-evaluate programs for effectiveness and efficiency. The performance measures are to be linked

to results of individual’s efforts. The Commission’s plan is not totally in-step with this vision.

One performance measurement the Commission proposes is to

track how long an investigation takes. The length of time that a

case or investigation remains open does not necessarily indicate the

Commission’s efficiency or effectiveness in working on it. Performance may be better linked to hours each individual spends working

on a task and the number of employees needed to accomplish each

activity.

The Subcommittee noted that the performance indicators as stated do not seem to include quality control mechanisms while emphasizing timeliness. It is desirable to shorten procedures as long as

the integrity of the outcome is not jeopardized. The Commission’s

intention to maintain the quality of its products has been mentioned to the Subcommittee, although not explicitly in the strategic

plan. The Commission found that the Results Act focuses on objectively measurable goals, and it had difficulty in structuring its plan

because statutory requirements direct how investigations are conducted, thus limiting the Commission’s ability to make meaningful

goals.

According to the plan, the Commission intends to measure its

performance results in part by providing surveys to participating

individuals and commissioners to get those individuals’ subjective

feedback on how the Commission is doing and what would be more

useful to the Commission’s consumers. Although this type of input

is worthwhile, its subjective nature may make the data’s reliability

questionable. The Subcommittee was informed by the Commission

that it believes that it will have reliable data for all performance

measures for trade information services by March 2000.
19

The Subcommittee would be interested to learn more about how

the Commission incorporates similar activities within the different

investigations it undertakes to make the processes more effective.

The Subcommittee is concerned by the Commission’s third strategic goal of obtaining increased use of its research products. The

Subcommittee endorses making trade information more readily

available to those individuals who request it. However, the Commission’s choice of measurement is perplexing since it requires obtaining software (which the Commission is not sure is available at

a reasonable cost) that will allow the Commission to search for

mentions of its name and trade reports in Congressional debates.

This is not an effective use of the Commission’s scarce resources.

Another stated performance indicator of this goal is to count the

number of Members of Congress that testify as witnesses in hearings. Because Members of Congress are not employees of the Commission, their testimony is not indicative of the Commission’s performance. This does not seem to be relevant to how accurate the

Commission’s trade reports are or whether its investigations and

adjudications are fair.

The Commission’s plan is clear and coherent so that it informs

the reader. The plan’s annual performance goals, the mission, and

the strategic plan reflect the same concepts and ideas. The creation

of the strategic plan forced the Commission to reevaluate its objectives and formally establish goals and measurements. However, in

discussions with the budget staff, it appears that true linkage of

the performance plan, strategy, and goals with daily activities and

the budget process has not occurred. Compliance seems to generate

more work and additional paper that were not previously part of

the Commission’s working framework.

The Subcommittee notes that the Commission staff has made

extra efforts to consult with this Subcommittee about how it can

improve its budget presentation to better meet the needs of Congress. Currently, the strategic plan is helpful to the Subcommittee

in giving an overview of how the Commission intends to function.

The strategic plan would be of more assistance to appropriators if

it provided more details, such as how many investigations would be

completed within a given quarter of time. This is information that

a budget office usually compiles as part of its budget formulation

process, and it would be relevant to both the budget and the strategic plans. Overall, the Subcommittee would like to see the Commission perfect its goals by focusing more on items it currently documents without having to implement new systems with possibly

unreliable results.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

The Department of Commerce Annual Performance Plan (Plan)

for fiscal year 2000 outlines 3 strategic themes. Given the diverse

missions of the Department’s myriad agencies, the Plan is stronger

in some areas than others. For example, it is easier to quantify and

measure increased lead time for severe weather warnings than it

is to determine whether the Department is successful in advancing

‘‘the public interest in telecommunications, mass media and information.’’ In general, the Department’s Plan presents reasonable

programmatic goals and adequate means to measure their achieve-
20

ment. However, the portions of the Plan describing the Department’s management strategy seem to lack the detail and focus

found in the Plan’s programmatic activities.

For example, the Subcommittee continues to be concerned about

the Department’s ability to manage its finances. The Plan does not

provide sufficient detail about steps the Department plans to take

in fiscal year 2000 to improve its financial management systems.

Millions of dollars have been appropriated to assist the Department

in updating its financial management systems, and little detail is

provided in the Department’s Plan to outline how these funds were

spent and what steps will be taken to improve the management

and control of the significant resources provided by Congress for

Departmental programs. It is reasonable for the Subcommittee to

expect the Plan to provide a timetable for the deployment of a new

Department-wide financial management system by agency. It is not

enough for the Department to say that its goal is clean financial

audits as if such audits are in and of themselves sufficient proof

of improved financial management. The Department’s need for improved financial management has been a concern of the Subcommittee for the past 3 fiscal years, and was the subject of an Inspector General report in fiscal year 1997. The failure of the Department to outline specific goals and procedures to implement improved financial management and controls undermines the credibility of its detailed programmatic performance goals. In short, if

the Department cannot account for funds it is given to conduct programs, how can the Subcommittee determine if the goals are being

effectively and efficiently achieved?

Of particular concern in this regard is the decennial census. The

Plan states that a new pilot financial management system was implemented at the Bureau of the Census in fiscal year 1998. The

only information provided in the Plan about the pilot was that a

major accounting firm ‘‘completed an Independent Verification and

Validation * * * of the pilot.’’ The decennial census has been identified by the GAO as a high-risk program which could have problems. The financial management of the decennial census is given

inadequate attention in the Department’s Plan, which is unacceptable to the Subcommittee.

The Subcommittee expects the Department’s future Plans to

more fully integrate financial management and controls with programmatic goals. Program goals and the funds to achieve these

goals are not mutually exclusive concepts, and the Department

would do well to recognize this.

TITLE III—THE JUDICIARY

While the Federal judiciary is not covered by GPRA, it does incorporate many GPRA tenets into its budget planning procedures

and has responded to the Subcommittee in that context. The judiciary’s goals are results-oriented. The annual statistics provided to

the Subcommittee about the number of cases adjudicated, appeals

heard, etc., tell little as to efficiency of the Federal judiciary. It

would be helpful if GPRA tenets were used by the judiciary to demonstrate to the Subcommittee how it is making strides in controlling what it believes to be uncontrollable costs, such as rental payments and staffing. For example, the Subcommittee has difficulty
21

understanding substantially increased staff requests every year

when computer modernization and other technological advances

should have made court procedures much more efficient.

The judiciary’s workload is largely controlled by what crimes the

Congress federalizes. Since the judiciary has no control over what

crimes will be committed in the next fiscal year, it must rely on

estimates for its budget requests. In many instances the judiciary

has done a good job of estimating future requirements. The Subcommittee believes that this intense focus on planning for unknown

budget scenarios has distracted the judiciary from another important goal of ensuring that the cases it administers are handled in

an expedient and efficient manner.

TITLE IV—DEPARTMENT OF STATE

The State Department (State) is responsible for the conduct of

foreign affairs. State is struggling to develop meaningful performance measures. Not only is the art of diplomacy nearly impossible

to quantify, but the conduct of American foreign policy is subject

to so many outside influences—the President, Congress, interest

groups, other nations, international, non-governmental, and

transnational organizations, and international business—that attributing success or failure solely to State in any overseas endeavor

is misleading at best.

This will prove frustrating to the Subcommittee. GPRA-related

measures of effectiveness will be most beneficial in judging administrative support: information technology, construction and maintenance, security, and the like. Judgments regarding United States

interactions with other nations will likely remain highly subjective.

Partisan differences will further complicate a clear-eyed analysis of

the effectiveness of State initiatives.

TITLE V—RELATED AGENCIES

COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS

The Commission on Civil Rights has had some difficulties in the

past with program planning and budgeting. The agency seems to

be making a concerted effort to improve financial management and

control by requiring more in-depth management reports which tie

current activities to resources used according to project plan and to

link account and activities to budget justifications.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

The Federal Communications Commission [FCC] is in the process of updating its financial management systems and its cost accounting system to permit the agency to more efficiently capture

performance management data. The FCC has held several hearings

with industry, consumers, State and local governments and other

interested parties to gauge improvements which could be implemented to improve agency performance.

The Subcommittee observes that whether or not Congress approves any future restructuring of the agency, it is critical that the

FCC continue to make improvements in its operations based on its

current structure, particularly with regard to backlogs in consumer
22

complaints and pending applications. The Subcommittee further

notes that the FCC has indicated difficulty in using the Results Act

as a basis for funding requests because the ‘‘timing between the assessment of performance and the submission of an agency’s budget

is not synchronized.’’ The Subcommittee considers this a good observation and raises a question about whether the Results Act can

be used uniformly as a management tool government-wide.

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] has instituted quarterly

reviews of its performance measures and its budgetary resources.

The agency appears to have institutionalized these reviews to be

able to use information gained in its annual budget process. The

FTC has advised the Subcommittee that it has used the process to

streamline agency operations. The agency’s budget submission effectively tied its strategic plan to its request.

MARITIME ADMINISTRATION

The Maritime Administration [MARAD] in the Department of

Transportation is responsible for administering several programs

for the maritime industry relating to U.S. foreign and domestic

commerce and for national defense purposes. These include operating the Maritime Security Program, the Merchant Marine Academy, and the Title XI loan guarantee program.

MARAD appears to be moving in the direction of results-oriented

goals, and its mission and goals are relatively easy to meet. One

measure of MARAD’s effectiveness is the Title XI loan program.

The Subcommittee can easily observe the program’s operation, and

it appears to be working efficiently and as designed.

While MARAD does have a different jurisdiction than the Federal Maritime Commission, it would seem that these two small

agencies could be combined, and perhaps some budgetary savings

and efficiencies might be realized.

FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION

The Federal Maritime Commission (the Commission) is an independent regulatory agency charged with administering several laws

relating to the waterborne domestic and foreign offshore commerce

of the United States.

The Commission’s goals are fairly well defined and can be met,

and its programs and goals are oriented toward meeting those objectives. Recently, its main focus has been on implementing the

Ocean Shipping Reform Act. This implementation is not easily observed by the Subcommittee, and the Results Act might be better

used by the Commission to demonstrate to the Subcommittee the

problems with this implementation. Furthermore, the Commission

could show how it is meeting the goals of the statute and how it

plans to avoid unintended consequences in the process.

While the Commission does have a different jurisdiction than the

Maritime Administration, it would seem that these two small agencies could be combined, and perhaps some budgetary savings and

efficiencies might be realized.
(23)

1DOD News Briefing, Monday, May 19, 1997—2:30 p.m. Subject: Quadrennial Defense Review. http://www.defenselink.mil:80/news/May 1997/t051997lt0519qdr.html. 2 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense. May

1997. p.2. http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr/msg.html.

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Department of Defense [DOD], in its Results Act Performance Plan for fiscal year 2000, has compiled a comprehensive plan

designed to implement a management strategy based on the Quadrennial Defense Review [QDR] submitted to Congress in May of

1997.

In 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced some

specific goals of the QDR when he unveiled the plan to the press:

‘‘First, that the defense strategy developed in the QDR

process must be the basis for all other QDR decisions and

analyses. The success of the QDR is directly a result of our

ability to adhere to the principle that the QDR be strategybased.

‘‘Second, that we should not make any unrealistic assumptions about the threat, about operations, about support costs which have been consistently underestimated in

recent years, and about those program schedules and costs

as well, so I wanted realistic assumptions.’’ 1

DOD is in a unique situation when it comes to projecting plans

into the future. DOD budget submissions are based on Five-Year

Defense Plans [FYDP]. The Results Act Performance Plan for fiscal

year 2000 should be nothing more than a road map on how to implement that budget, using the QDR as a parallel document.

The QDR sets out very clear, specific goals for DOD’s long-term

strategy and mission goals. According to the report submitted to

Congress, ‘‘Building on the President’s National Security Strategy,

we determined that U.S. defense strategy for the near and long

term must continue to shape the strategic environment to advance

U.S. interests, maintain the capability to respond to the full spectrum of threats, and prepare now for the threats and dangers of

tomorrow and beyond.’’ 2

DOD, in its fiscal year 2000 report, has revised prior goals from

a series of six corporate goals into two corporate goals. The stated

reason is to ‘‘more accurately reflect the necessary resource tradeoffs between current and future needs’’.

The two corporate goals presented in the report are consistent

with the QDR. The goals of the fiscal year 2000 report are to

‘‘shape and respond’’, and to ‘‘prepare’’.

Each executive agency covered by the Results Act must develop

a multi-year strategic plan that identifies the fundamental mission
24

3Government Performance and Results Act Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000, Department of Defense, p. 7. http://www.dtic.mil/execsec/adr1999/apdxlj.html.

of the agency, general goals that would be used to achieve the mission, and resources needed to accomplish the mission.

DOD does a good job of complying with this requirement. The

goals and measures focused on in the report are those that are the

most important to DOD’s overall mission. The report states very

clearly the Department’s missions and roles.

However, the missions presented in the report are somewhat

vague and do not present a clear, specific focus. Rather, they are

sufficiently vague and all-encompassing to allow any action taken

by the Department to be fit into the stated strategy after-the-fact.

This would seem to be an enormous burden to managers in developing strategic plans based on finite goals with which to compare

their progress.

DOD’s goals and measures are output-oriented. The goals are

clear, objective results which in many cases, will be easily identifiable. For example, the plan includes goals to maintain specific

numbers of troop strength and ensure the quality of those personnel. This goal can be assessed based on quantifiable analysis

through the Department’s ‘‘Active Component Enlisted Retention

Rates’’, as well as through ‘‘Quality Benchmarks for Enlisted Recruits’’.

The goals are clear cut and well-defined. However, the means of

achieving these goals is somewhat ambiguous. While DOD has

crafted well-thought out objective measures of achieving its goals,

its mission statement makes it difficult to achieve those goals.

In the area of Army deployment tempo, for example, DOD sets

out an admirable goal of moving from 18 units deploying more than

120 days per year to 0, but its mission statement does not give

great confidence that it will be able to meet this goal. DOD claims

it will be able to go everywhere and anywhere, and it seems that

in fact it does.

According to DOD’s report, ‘‘Today’s security environment presents the same pressing needs for military forces as existed when

the QDR was conducted. The force-level objectives for fiscal year

2000 are, therefore, largely the same as the goals set in the QDR.

The intent of these goals is to provide forces that can fight and win

two major theater wars nearly simultaneously. At the same time,

the goals reflect the fact that the United States must remain prepared to respond to smaller-scale contingencies. Although they are

much less demanding than major theater wars, smaller-scale contingencies can become a very high priority, particularly when swift

intervention of military forces is needed to contain, resolve, or mitigate the consequences of a conflict that could otherwise become far

more costly and deadly.

‘‘Because crises can arise quickly, U.S. military forces must be

continuously ready to respond * * *. In recognition of the need to

more closely monitor tempo across the force, the Joint Staff, in coordination with the Services, has instituted a tempo management

process. The metric, for each Service, is the number of units exceeding its tempo goal.’’ 3
25

4Government Performance and Results Act Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000, Department of Defense, p. 2. http://www.dtic.mil/execsec/adr1999/apdxlj.html

However, if the Pentagon has had this difficult of a time meeting

these goals to date, how will they change? The report does not explain how the herculean task of reducing deployment tempo will be

accomplished—only that it will be accomplished. The report defines

the metric to evaluate whether or not the goal is being met, but

does not describe what is going to change to make meeting these

goals likely. Will there be some sort of policy change? Or perhaps,

there will be some other fundamental change in the way DOD deploys troops so that these goals will be met. The goals are very aggressive, and without some description of how they will be met,

these goals are nothing more than good intentions.

As the United States military is tasked with many more and new

humanitarian missions, it is essential to define when, where and

how troops will be used. The ‘‘calculus’’ which is referred to in the

DOD report must be clear cut and objective, not subjective criteria

used after forces are already committed to justify the action rather

than being the guidance for the decision to commit or not commit

forces.

The report states that ‘‘In all cases where the commitment of

U.S. forces is considered, determining whether the associated costs

and risks are commensurate with the U.S. interests at stake should

be the central calculus of U.S. decisions. Such decisions should also

depend on the United States’ ability to identify a clear mission, the

desired end state of the situation, and the exit strategy for the

forces committed.’’ 4 However, the report never defines that ‘‘calculus’’ in a significant, objective way.

The goals and measures in the report are well-defined and laid

out. The measurement criteria are also well defined. Among others,

the plan includes goals to maintain specified levels of forces, flying

hours, tank miles and steaming days, personnel force levels as well

as numbers of units deploying for more than a specified time period. This data will prove useful in determining whether or not

DOD has met its stated goals.

However, the report does not explain in detail how certain measurement data will be derived. Specifically, the report refers to associated costs and risks as the central calculus of U.S. decisions and

as the determining factor in deciding whether or not to deploy U.S.

forces. Unfortunately, this subjective measurement is neither fully

developed nor explained anywhere in the report.

Additionally, when asked about the involvement of senior executives and other key managers being held accountable for achieving

results, the Department of Defense responded as follows:

‘‘DOD component heads are held accountable by a number of

management processes used within the Department. Each year

when the components submit budget proposals to the Secretary,

the objectives that the Secretary has set for each component are

compared with the performance levels that would be achieved in

the next budget and the five years that follow. Additionally, in the

context of GPRA, senior managers are responsible for reporting results against the performance goals set in the annual performance

report. Senior managers are also responsible for verifying and vali-
26

5Office of the Secretary of Defense, October 4, 1999, response of Mr. James L. Johnson, Deputy Director, Theater Assessments and Planning. 6Government Performance and Results Act Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000, Department of Defense, p. 2. http://www.dtic.mil/execsec/adr1999/apdxlj.html. 7Observations on the Department of Defense’s Annual Performance Plan for fiscal year 2000.

General Accounting Office. April 22, 1999.

dating the results that they report. The acquisition system holds

managers accountable with periodic reviews of the progress of

major acquisition programs and major reviews that coincide with

each milestone in the acquisition process. The Defense Management Council [DMC] monitors the progress of management reforms

instituted in the Defense Reform Initiative [DRI]. One of the mechanisms used by the DMC to define goals and monitor progress is

the performance contracts that have been established for defense

agencies. Another example is the management of force readiness.

The Department monitors day-to-day readiness of its forces

through two senior forms: the Joint Monthly Readiness Review

[JMRR] and the Senior Readiness Oversight Council [SROC]. The

detailed work reflected in the JMRR is summarized in a Department-wide readiness review presented monthly to the SROC. The

key results of these reviews are forwarded to the Congress in the

form of the Quarterly Readiness Report to Congress [QRRC]. The

QRRC will also include the classified readiness measures that have

been developed for the GPRA annual performance plan and report.’’ 5

The Department of Defense’s Results Act Performance Plan for

fiscal year 2000 notes that ‘‘there are several national security

issues that the Department addresses as part of an interagency

team.*** DOD provides technical support to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its efforts to combat terrorism, including

potential terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction. DOD likewise works closely with the Department of Justice and the Federal

Emergency Management Agency to ensure the security of the increasingly interconnected and vulnerable U.S. infrastructures

against physical or cyber attack. DOD also works closely with

FEMA to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Finally,

DOD conducts airborne and seaborne surveillance of high-intensity

drug-trafficking routes in support of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.’’ 6

The DOD report does not do an adequate job of addressing or explaining its coordination for cross-cutting efforts.

According to the GAO, ‘‘the plan does not sufficiently explain coordination with other agencies that conduct related activities. For

example, it does not discuss how DOD coordinates with State and

other agencies that cooperate in a number of programs and activities aimed at helping to shape the international environment.’’ 7

II. DATA RELIABILITY

The report leaves cause for concern with regard to the credibility

of data from DOD’s financial, accounting, and other information

systems. The Pentagon’s plan does not provide detail on how improvements will be made to existing systems and what new systems will be implemented. GAO notes that ‘‘while DOD’s performance plan discusses data verification and validation for some per-
27

formance measures and indicators, and it acknowledges that data

for certain measures and indicators come from financial and accounting systems that have experienced problems, it provides only

limited confidence that the performance information will be credible. To remedy accounting systems shortcomings, DOD has developed a financial management improvement plan. However, as we

reported, the improvement plan has several critical omissions

which, unless they are effectively addressed in the near term, will

impair the implementation of a sound foundation for fundamentally reforming DOD’s financial management operations.’’

GAO also noted that ‘‘DOD Inspector General and service audit

organizations have reported that DOD’s financial systems are not

in compliance with Federal systems requirements and applicable

Federal accounting standards. These problems limit the reliability

and timeliness of currently available financial information needed

to effectively manage operations. Moreover, the audit organizations

have repeatedly found systems to be inadequate for measuring the

cost of operations and programs.’’

Additionally, GAO notes that ‘‘although the plan states that

there are no known data deficiencies for some performance measures and indicators audits continue to identify significant problems

with the data integrity of DOD financial systems and supporting

cost, logistical, and operations information systems. For example,

the plan states that there are no known deficiencies in the data collection process related to the performance measure for the disposal

of unneeded government property held by contractors. That measure supports the annual performance goal to meet combat forces’

needs ‘smarter and faster’. However, accurately accounting for and

controlling contractor-held assets has been a long-standing issue at

DOD. A 1997 report by the DOD Inspector General recommended

that DOD develop short- and long-term solutions to the financial

accountability and reporting problems regarding government property in the possession of contractors. In response the Department

has set out an action plan with action steps for this area scheduled

to be completed by October 1999.

‘‘This year’s plan is moderately improved over last year’s in that

it demonstrates some degree of progress in addressing credibility of

performance information weaknesses we and others identified in

last year’s plan. Specifically, last year’s plan did not address known

data and systems deficiencies, the degree to which these deficiencies affect specific performance information, or planned actions

to address these deficiencies. Furthermore, the plan did not identify the extent to which external evaluations such as audits would

be used in the performance information validation process.

‘‘Improvements in this year’s plan in this area include discussions on (1) verifying and validating data such as that generated

by the components’ automated inventory data collection systems;

(2) known data and systems limitations for performance metrics,

such as using Selected Acquisition Reports data as an absolute

measure of research and development and procurement cost performance; and (3) planned actions to address data or systems deficiencies such as enhancing the interface among the military services and defense agencies to overcome data systems interoperability
28

8Observations on the Department of Defense’s Annual Performance Plan for fiscal year 2000.

General Accounting Office. April 22, 1999. 9Major Management Challenges and Program Risks—Department of Defense. GAO/OCG–99– 4.

problems related to the location of inventory. However, this year’s

plan does not address how external evaluations will be used.’’ 8

The success of performance-based management hinges on the

quality of information an organization produces to manage programs and measure success. Unfortunately, the inadequacy of information systems at the Department, according to GAO, provides

limited confidence that performance information will be credible.

The report falls short on the explanation of methodologies and

‘‘metrics’’ which serve as the basis for the criteria used to evaluate

the goals set forth in the report. It would be helpful if the report

explained in greater detail how those metrics were going to be built

and provided greater detail on the source of the raw data.

It is important to keep in mind the amount of information that

confronts DOD as an organization each month. Nonetheless, financial and information systems at DOD remain flawed, and cannot

produce verifiable performance information in most areas. DOD

must redouble efforts to ensure that its data capacity meets the

tremendous need outlined in its performance plan.

III. HIGH RISK PROBLEMS

In January 1999, GAO submitted a report which addresses

DOD’s major performance and management challenges. The various challenges addressed by GAO were categorized into two areas:

(1) systemic management challenges dealing with financial management, information management, weapon systems acquisition,

and contract management; and (2) program management challenges dealing with infrastructure, inventory management, and

personnel.9

The DOD report included performance goals, measures, and indicators related to six of nine major management challenges identified by the GAO and/or the DOD Inspector General.

MANAGEMENT CHALLENGE:

1. Financial Management.—GAO reported that DOD’s problems

range from being unable to properly account for billions of dollars

in assets to being unable to produce reliable and timely information

needed to make sound resource decisions. The DOD Inspector General reported that DOD remains unable to comply with laws requiring auditable financial statements for its major funds and for the

Department as a whole.

There was no goal in the plan which addresses this challenge.

However, in late October 1998, DOD issued its first Biennial Financial Management Improvement Plan, which established DOD’s

strategy for managing financial management operations. According

to the Secretary, the plan sets out DOD’s first ever attempt to describe the overall concept for its future financial management operations.

2. Information Management and Technology.—The GAO reported

that information management and technology issues are key DOD

management challenges. A primary short-term concern centers on
29

the implementation of the year 2000 conversions of date-sensitive

information on computer systems.

There was no goal in the plan which addresses this challenge;

however, the plan notes that DOD works with other Federal agencies to ensure the security of the increasingly interconnected and

vulnerable U.S. infrastructures against physical or cyber attack.

Additionally, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 requires DOD to establish goals for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations through the use of information technology. It also requires

DOD to include an annual report with the submission of its budget

to the Congress on its progress in achieving the goals. The current

report is Appendix K in DOD’s 1999 Annual Report to the President and the Congress. The goals are to: (1) become a mission partner; (2) provide services that satisfy customer needs; (3) reform information technology management processes to increase efficiency

and mission contribution; and (4) ensure vital information resources are secure and protected. Appendix K discusses progress

toward achieving these goals and efforts to meet the technical challenges related to year 2000 compliance.

3. Weapon System Acquisition.—GAO reported that effectively

managing the weapon systems acquisition process continues to be

a concern. Although DOD has increased its procurement budget, it

consistently pays more and takes longer than planned to develop

systems that do not perform as anticipated.

The DOD IG also reported a compelling need to accelerate the

weapon systems acquisition cycle and reduce per unit costs. The IG

further reported that a significant gap exists between weapon systems modernization requirements and planned funding. DOD has

a goal to further increase procurement spending, but the goal relies

on shifting about $10 billion of spending a year from other areas.

The IG doubts that planned actions will free up that amount of

funds.

The Performance Plan includes a performance goal to ‘‘meet combat forces’ needs smarter and faster, with products and services

that work better and cost less, by improving the efficiency of acquisition processes’’. The plan includes two related performance measures: (1) Major Defense Acquisition Program cost growth; and (2)

Successful completion of weapon system operational test and evaluation events. The plan also includes a related performance indicator-Major Defense Acquisition Program cycle time.

4. Contracting.—DOD spends over $100 billion a year contracting

for goods and services. Over the last few years, several broad-based

changes have been made to acquisition and contracting processes

to improve DOD-contractor relationships and rules. But GAO and

the DOD IG continue to identify risks in contracting, including erroneous, fraudulent, and improper payments to contractors; payment of higher prices for commercial spare parts than necessary;

and the award and administration of health care contracts. The

DOD IG reported that the sheer volume and great variety of the

contracting activity make it a high-risk area. The IG also reported

a lack of good cost information and significant levels of fraud, mostly by providers, in the Defense Health Program.

The Performance Plan includes three performance indicators that

relate to some aspects of contracting: (1) the percentage of pur-
30

chases made by purchase card; (2) the percentage of paperless

transactions; and (3) the percentage of paperless acquisition transactions.

5. Defense Infrastructure.—GAO reported that although DOD has

substantially downsized its force structure over the past 7 to 10

years, it has not reduced operations and support costs—the costs

for its supporting infrastructure—commensurately. A key reason is

that the services are reluctant to consolidate activities that span

service lines and reduce capacity as necessary. The DOD IG reported that key infrastructure areas such as transportation, maintenance, facilities, and supply offer opportunities to reduce costs.

The IG noted, however, that many logical measures are highly controversial and that the Congress and DOD disagree over additional

base closures and the distribution of workload between DOD and

private sector maintenance facilities.

The Performance Plan includes a performance goal to ‘‘streamline the infrastructure by redesigning the Departments support

structure and pursuing business practice reforms.’’ Key related performance measures include: (1) the number of positions subject to

A–76 competition studies; (2) logistics response time; (3) the dollar

amount of National Defense Stockpile disposals and reductions in

the supply inventory; and (4) disposals of excess real property.

Other key related performance indicators include: (1) the percentage of budget spent on infrastructure; (2) the percentage of materiel assets that are visible and accessible to its Integrated Materiel Managers; and (3) the net operating results of working capital

funds.

6. Inventory Management.—GAO reported that DOD’s inventory

management practices continue to be ineffective and inefficient and

are not well-suited to meet new missions and war-fighting strategies. As a result, DOD spends more than necessary to procure inventory, yet items are not available when needed. The DOD IG also

reported shortages of spare parts and that war reserves are overstocked in some locations but short of critical items in others. The

IG additionally reported problems with fraud and inappropriate

practices in the disposal process.

The Performance Plan includes two performance measures related to inventory management: (1) logistics response time; and (2)

the dollar amount of National Defense Stockpile disposals and reductions in the supply inventory. The plan also includes two related performance indicators: (1) the percentage of materiel assets

that are visible and accessible to its Integrated Materiel Managers;

and (2) the dollar amount of unfunded depot maintenance requirements.

7. Military Personnel.—GAO reported that DOD’s personnel programs to recruit, train, and retain a high-quality active-duty enlisted workforce have not received the management attention needed to ensure their successful operation. The military services recruit tens of thousands of new enlistees each year who fail to complete their contracts. The Performance Plan includes a performance

goal to ‘‘recruit, retain, and develop personnel to maintain a highly

skilled and motivated force capable of meeting tomorrow’s challenges.’’ The plan includes three related performance measures: (1)

the number of enlisted recruits inducted into the Active Force and
31

into the Selected Reserve; (2) the Active Force components enlisted

retention rates; and (3) the Selected Reserves’ enlisted attrition

rates. The plan also includes a related performance indicator. It is

the percentage of enlisted recruits that meet quality benchmarks

(high school diplomas, etc.) for such recruits.

8. Military Readiness.—The DOD IG reported that DOD has difficulties in maintaining sufficient military readiness. The IG reported a concern about the accuracy of reporting for unit-level readiness; weaknesses in chemical and biological defense preparedness

and in communications capability; impact of changes in the threat

environment; and impact of currently approved budget levels.

The Performance Plan includes a performance goal to ‘‘maintain

ready forces and ensure they have the training necessary to provide the United States with the ability to shape the international

environment and respond to the full range of crises.’’ The plan includes classified measures for the readiness of each service’s forces.

The plan also includes several related performance indicators, including: (1) the amount of time military personnel are deployed; (2)

number of flying hours per month, by service; (3) number of tank

miles per year; (4) number of steaming days per quarter; and (5)

classified indicators for the percentage of billets filled in each service.

9. Turbulence From Change.—The DOD IG reported that all

functional areas within DOD are engaged in fundamental reform

and process reengineering efforts at the same time, causing turbulence. The turbulence brings with it several additional difficult

challenges such as conflicting priorities, downsizing, outsourcing,

dependence on new and unproven systems or processes, and de-emphasis on management controls and oversight, all of which are putting considerable strain on DOD. The IG noted that DOD confronts

a huge task in coordinating and integrating its hundreds of reform

initiatives so that they do not work at cross purposes with each

other.

There was no goal in the report which addressed this challenge;

however, the plan and the Secretary’s annual report discuss human

capital management issues such as recruiting, training, operating

tempo, and military retention. The Secretary’s annual report also

includes chapters on initiatives such as acquisition reform, financial management reform, and infrastructure.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

Both DOD and GAO provided consultations with the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. These consultations were very useful.

DOD also provided written responses to a series of questions related to the GPRA report submitted to Congress. The responsibility

for responding to Congress was through Mr. James L. Johnson,

Deputy Director Theater Assessments and Planning. Mr. Johnson

and his staff were very helpful.

V. USEFULNESS

The DOD plan is clear, cogent and coherent. It does a good job

of laying out the specific goals of the Department. The goals are reduced to 2 major ‘‘corporate goals’’, and the report breaks them

down into useful sub-categories. The explanations make clear what
32

the specific goals are aimed at doing and ties them in well with the

QDR. While clearly stating goals and measures, the plan lacks information on how DOD will use performance information to assess

mission outcomes.
(33)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY CONSTRUCTION

The Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee has reviewed the DOD Performance Plan for fiscal year 2000. Further,

the Subcommittee evaluated the performance done by GAO to assess compliance with the Results Act. The Subcommittee commends the assessment and recommendations presented by GAO

and endorses the more detailed report provided by the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

With respect to military construction, the Department does not

clearly articulate how it intends to modernize, renovate and improve an aging defense infrastructure as the United States transitions into the next century. DOD’s plan provides only a partial picture of intended performance across the Department. For example,

it does not include any performance measures and associated target levels to help decision makers assess progress toward DOD’s

goal to achieve a 21st century infrastructure. The key objective

should be to reduce costs while maintaining military capabilities.

The plan notes, however, that the total dollars spent on infrastructure and infrastructure costs as a percentage of total defense

spending are metrics used to gauge success in infrastructure reduction. DOD could improve its plan by using these metrics as performance measures and establishing associated target performance

levels.

The Subcommittee encourages the Department to establish in its

fiscal year 2001 submission to Congress specific performance goals

and measures that address key indicators concerning military infrastructure and construction. These measures should include reduction of real property maintenance backlogs, improvement of

family housing, reduction of family housing deficits, modernization

of unaccompanied personnel housing, and efforts to address critical

shortfalls of quality of life facilities.
(34)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Legislative History

On October 19, 1994, the District of Columbia Self-Government

and Governmental Reorganization Act (Home Rule Act) was

amended by Public Law 103–373, the Federal Payment Reauthorization Act of 1994 (Reauthorization Act), to include performance

and financial accountability requirements for the District government. The amendment required the District government to devise,

implement, and submit to the Congress comprehensive financial

and performance standards. The purpose of the legislation was to

encourage District government accountability by requiring systematic goal-setting, measurement and reporting of program performance and financial management.

At the time of enactment of the performance standards, the District government was on the verge of financial collapse. A June 22,

1994 GAO report found that the District of Columbia faced cash

problems and a long-term imbalance of revenues and expenditures.

The GAO report further found that the District government had attempted to balance its books with short-term actions that both exacerbate cash problems and postpone financial solutions. To aid the

District government in addressing its financial problems and to encourage performance-based government planning, Congress enacted

legislation for performance-based planning and reporting. The legislation was based on the Federal Government Performance and

Results Act of 1993.

By the close of fiscal year 1994, the District’s financial condition

was so critical that Congress passed, and the President signed into

law, Public Law 104–8, the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act of 1995 (the Act). The Act

established the D.C. Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority (the Authority) and the Office of Chief Financial

Officer [OCFO] and gave these offices oversight responsibility for

the District’s budget.

Performance Accountability Reporting Requirements

The Reauthorization Act included a reporting schedule to ensure

accountability for program performance. Not later than March 1 of

each year, beginning in 1995, the Mayor was required to develop

and submit to Congress and the Comptroller General of the GAO

a performance accountability plan for all significant activities of all

departments, agencies and programs of the District government for

the subsequent fiscal year.

Each plan was required to include performance goals that were

measurable and objective, for both the quantity and quality of the

activities, and to include measures of program outcomes and results. The manager most responsible for achieving each goal and

that person’s immediate supervisor were to be identified. To meas-
35

ure the effectiveness of program management, each significant activity was to have two goals: one for an acceptable level of performance and one for a superior level.

Not later than March 1 of each year, beginning in 1997, the

Mayor was required to develop and submit to Congress and the

Comptroller General a performance accountability report on District government activities for the fiscal year ending on the previous September 30. The report was required to include: (1) for

each stated goal of the submitted plan, a statement of the actual

level of performance achieved compared to the stated goal for an

acceptable level of performance and the goal for a superior level of

performance; (2) identification of the manager and that person’s

immediate supervisor; and (3) a statement of the status of any

court orders for the District government and steps taken towards

compliance with the court orders.

District Government Compliance with the Performance Accountability Requirements

As of January 1, 1997, Congress had not received a performance

accountability plan from the District government. On July 10,

1997, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of

Columbia held a hearing on the District’s fiscal year 1998 budget

request. At the hearing, the Mayor was questioned on the status

of the District government’s performance accountability plan. Testimony established that the Mayor had not complied with the law.

Following the shift in control of nine District agencies from the

Mayor to the Authority by the Management Reform Act of 1997,

Congress amended the law to require the Authority to prepare the

report.

On March 2, the Authority submitted its ‘‘Report On A Comprehensive Performance Management System.’’ This report provided a conceptual framework for the District government’s Comprehensive Performance Management System. However, it lacked

the quantitative measures and time lines expected by Congress.

On September 30, 1998, Dr. Camille Barnett, the District’s Chief

Management Officer [CMO], submitted the District’s Fiscal Year

1999 Performance Accountability Plan to Congress. In the development of the plan, each agency worked to: (1) clarify its mission; (2)

describe key programs, projects and initiatives; and (3) identify

measures of services and functions deemed in support of its commitment to its customers, the residents of the District of Columbia.

The plan stated that the most significant challenges facing the District government were those related to measuring performance in

ways that are reliable, valid and truly useful for management improvement.

In November 1998, the District elected a new Mayor, Anthony A.

Williams, and in January 1999, Dr. Barnett resigned as CMO. On

March 5, 1999, the District of Columbia Management Restoration

Act of 1999, Public Law 106–1, was enacted. The act repealed the

District of Columbia Management Reform Act of 1997 (Subtitle B

of Title XI of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Public Law 105–

33), thus restoring to the Mayor management authority for the

daily operation of the District’s nine largest departments.
36

As the first step in the new administration’s approach to performance-based government, the Mayor announced a short-term action agenda. Under this agenda, certain agencies embarked on an

aggressive effort to eliminate problems responsive to immediate

corrective action. On March 24, 1999, the Mayor delivered to Congress a draft project plan for the Performance Accountability Work

Plan. The final work plan, entitled ‘‘District of Columbia Management Report,’’ was submitted to Congress on June 1, 1999, as part

of the District government’s consensus budget for fiscal year 2000.

District of Columbia Management Report

The District of Columbia Management Report establishes baseline measures for performance-based management for results in the

District government. The report includes a range of measures for

all levels of government. The efforts of all District agencies are

framed by four strategic goals: (1) improvement of government

services; (2) an expanded economy; (3) support for the District’s

children; and (4) a rebuilding of the human services network. Agencies have now embarked on an effort at long-term strategic planning, and agency directors are currently developing performance

measures, with a focus on the agency’s mission and organizational

objectives.

Performance Measures and Performance Assessment

Performance measures are expected to help monitor and improve

the long-term strategic planning effort and to indicate how well

structural changes within an agency are improving the quality and

delivery of services to District residences. The Mayor selected 17

agencies to develop outcome and customer service measures. Thirteen of the targeted agencies provide direct services to District residents and significantly impact the quality of their lives on an ongoing basis. The remaining 4 agencies are relied upon by the direct

service agencies to support their daily operations. High impact

agencies were identified in the following six areas:

—Economic Development and Regulation.—Department of Housing and Community Development; Department of Employment

Service; Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.

—Public Safety and Justice.—Metropolitan Police Department;

Fire and Emergency Services Department; Department of Corrections.

—Public Education Systems.—D.C. Public Schools; D.C. Public

Library.

—Public Works.—Department of Public Works; Department of

Motor Vehicles.

—Government Support.—Office of Personnel; Office of Contracting and Procurement; Office of the Chief Technology Officer; Office of Property Management.

In the fiscal year 2000 budget submission, these agencies presented a mission statement, performance measures and target

dates. In addition, the Mayor and designated agencies have entered

into performance contracts that outline the agency’s mission, goals

and measures and establish a time line for major agency initiatives. The Office of the Mayor issues interim reports to the general

public to inform residents of the government’s efforts to measure
37

customer service and satisfaction. To verify results of the performance measurement system, the Mayor’s Director of Customer Service has formed a task force to document agencies’ data collection

practices and self-testing. Additionally, the District’s independent

Office of the Inspector General will perform performance audits of

agency outcome measures to ensure an objective analysis.

The District assesses performance on 4 criteria: customer perspective; financial accountability; internal business processes; and

learning and growth. Based on the District government’s own observations, agencies need to develop better measures in the areas

of financial accountability; learning and growth; and employee

training.

Analysis of District’s Progress as a Performance Based Municipal

Government

Mayor Williams previously served as the District’s Chief Financial Officer [CFO] from 1995 until 1997. During his tenure as CFO,

Mr. Williams used results-based practices to bring the District’s

budget into balance and, ultimately, generate a surplus. Now, as

Mayor, Mr. Williams has designed a framework for performance

measurement in the District of Columbia. The task facing the new

administration is twofold: (1) the development of goals and measures for the various agencies; and (2) holding District employees

and managers accountable for the achievement of those goals.

Successful implementation of a District-wide performance management system will require a major paradigm shift among District

employees at all levels of responsibility, but foremost by agency supervisors, who are responsible for articulating the administration’s

goals and objectives. The staff of the Office of the City Administrator, which has responsibility for District government management policies, recently articulated eleven recommendations for the

development and implementation of performance measures: —Insure that all agency directors and CFO’s are aware of the requirements concerning performance plans.

—Clearly, consistently and frequently communicate the vision.

—Separate the types of measures and define responsibility for

their development and tracking.

—Implement a comprehensive change management program.

—Align the change management and performance measurement

activities to the Mayor’s strategic priorities.

—Appoint the Directors of Personnel and Collective Bargaining

and Labor Relations as co-champions for the implementation.

—Define an aggressive implementation schedule, but initially tie

it to existing or soon to be started projects.

—Clearly define who develops and reviews measures.

—Allocate sufficient human and fiscal resources for bench marking activities.

—Require high levels of data quality.

—Align information and personnel systems.

Analysis of Performance Measures

The District of Columbia Budget for fiscal year 2000 included

performance measures for 17 agencies. The format for the presentation of the agency measures is consistent and included: (1) a
38

statement of the agency’s mission; (2) a list of performance measures; (3) actual performance data for fiscal year 1998; (4) target

performance measures for fiscal year 1999; and (5) target performance measures for fiscal year 2000.

Generally, the mission statement for each agency is straightforward, concise and agency-appropriate. Overall, the performance

measures for the various agencies are specific and measurable. In

some instances, however, an agency performance measure is not

clearly linked to the agency’s stated mission. For example, although the Department of Motor Vehicles stated mission is to foster ‘‘the safe operation of motor vehicles on the District’s streets in

accordance with applicable laws and regulations,’’ none of the performance measures related to this mission.

Implementation of performance accountability requirements by

the District government has been long-delayed, in part by the

major management changes in the District government during the

past 6 years. The initial efforts of the Mayor and his administration indicate a commitment to performance accountability. However, the Subcommittee expects improvements in the District’s adherence to the spirit of the Reauthorization Act through the development of performance measures and their clear linkage to the

stated mission of District agencies in fiscal year 2001. The District

government should more clearly articulate agency goals. Without

clear goals, the District and Congress cannot assess the success of

agencies in achieving performance-based governance.

Likewise, the Subcommittee expects the District government to

more fully comply with the letter of the law. Specifically, the District has not provided performance accountability plans for all departments, agencies and programs of the District government. In

fact, the Subcommittee has received the required plans for only 18

agencies. Additionally, the District has failed to identify all managers and that person’s immediate supervisor. Finally, the Reauthorization Act requires the District government to provide a comprehensive report on all District activities subject to court order, including the requirements of the court order. To date, the District

has failed to provide Congress with this information, even though

court orders and receiverships cost the District government millions of dollars each year.
(39)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Results Act requires agencies to develop tri-annual strategic

plans, annual performance plans, and annually report results beginning with the fiscal year 1999 budget cycle. The Department of

Energy [DOE] has met all three of those requirements. The Department’s performance of those requirements has been evaluated by

both GAO and the Subcommittee. While a tri-annual strategic

plan, an annual performance plan, and an annual report are the

legislated requirements of the Results Act, they are not the Act’s

objective. The Results Act’s objectives are to shift the focus of government agencies from a preoccupation with actions taken—such

as grants dispensed or inspections made—to a focus on the results

of those activities, such as real gains in employability, safety, responsiveness, or program quality.

A review of the implementation of the Results Act, conducted in

accordance with the spirit of the Act, asks a single question, ‘‘Is the

Department of Energy achieving desirable results?’’ The answer to

that question varies tremendously across the Department.

DOE historically has a poor record for completing large projects.

From 1980 through 1996, the Department terminated 31 of 80

major system acquisitions (mission-critical projects costing over

$100 million) after expenditures of over $10 billion, and completed

only 15 of the 80, most of which were behind schedule and over

budget. For example, DOE spent $6.5 billion over 15 years for a

permanent disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The project, which was supposed to open in 1998, is

currently 12 years behind schedule. In recent years, the Department has recognized its project management weaknesses and

sought to improve. The DOE, which contracts for over 90 percent

of its work, has had problems managing those contracts and overseeing the technical aspects of its contracts. For example, DOE routinely turns to contractors to review proposals and work performed

by other contractors. The result is that, within the closely knit contractor community in which contractors frequently subcontract

with one another (sometimes through many layers on a single

task), it is not clear that the Government’s interests prevail over

those of the contractors.

DOE’s management structure does not effectively solve agency

problems. The Department continues to exacerbate this weakness

by adding layers of management onto the Department in response

to specific issues, such as the creation of security and counter-intelligence ‘‘czars’’ in response to recent allegations of espionage. In a

report mandated by this Subcommittee, the Institute for Defense

Analysis found that:
40

‘‘Many DOE and contractor-officials describe Defense

Programs oversight as creating an inverted management

pyramid, because the number of reviewers exceeds the

number of hands-on workers. For example, contractors

have cited examples where work done by two or three people becomes the subject of review meetings involving 40 or

more Defense Programs officials.’’

That example cites only the problem internal to Defense Programs. The problem expands when reviewers from other oversight

functions are included. The Department has programs within one

office, complying with policies set by a second office, in accordance

with procedures set by a third office, verified by a fourth office.

This myriad of oversight and review does not improve performance.

To the contrary, in some cases it diminishes performance. As overseers have multiplied, the line between oversight and responsibility

has been blurred and sometimes disappears. The frequent result is

that, when mistakes are made, all parties contend they are overseers, and no one takes responsibility.

Successive Secretaries have sought to address this issue and

have had limited success. An earlier review chaired by Bob Galvin,

the Chairman of Motorola, found that:

‘‘There have been many studies of the Department of

Energy laboratories. As one reads these reports, one recognizes that the items which were recommended in previous

reports are for the most part recommended in most subsequent reports. As each past study has taken place, people

of good intention make sincere efforts to ‘fine tune’ the system. However, the Department and the Congress should

recognize that there has been little fundamental improvement as a function of past studies * * *.’’

While DOE has had problems fulfilling many of its objectives, it

has successfully met others. For example, 3 years ago, the programs of the Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy were inappropriately dominated by the interests of

non-governmental organizations, and there was little or no coordination in the development of various renewable energy technologies. The current Assistant Secretary has effectively returned

decision making and priority setting to the cognizant Federal officials, has greatly reduced the ‘‘stove-pipes’’ that allowed different

renewable energy technologies to proceed without consideration to

their relative merits, and has implemented a merit-based procurement process.

The Office of Defense Programs [ODP] has taken its broad responsibility to maintain the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile

through science and developed detailed tasks and schedules for

each weapons system through the ‘‘Green Book’’ process. The ‘‘Green Book’’ is suitable as a detailed performance plan for ODP.

Unfortunately, ODP’s ability to meet the schedules of the ‘‘Green

Book’’ is in question. While part of the problem is due to issues internal to Defense Programs, because of the Department’s ‘‘matrix’’

management structure, issues outside of ODP have previously contributed to problems within ODP. Legislation has been enacted to

create a semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administra-
41

tion within DOE to manage its national security functions in an effort to address this issue.

The Department’s problems in ‘‘achieving desirable results’’ exist

in part because a number of the Department’s missions are controversial and among the most difficult tasks the Government has

before it. For example, the Department is struggling within its Environmental Quality programs to comply with myriad environmental laws and regulations developed prior to their application to

departmental facilities. In many cases, waste streams from departmental facilities contain material or combinations of material not

found in the private sector, for which the respective laws and regulations require contradictory remedies. Due to the unforeseen application of these laws to departmental sites, DOE has been forced to

enter into compliance agreements with States and Federal regulators that include milestones the Department knows it will be unable to meet and milestones that must be met using unproven or

even unknown technologies.

II. CONSULTATIONS

The Department has assigned responsibility for compliance with

the Results Act to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer [OCFO].

In recent years, OCFO, with the support of the Subcommittee, has

substantially expanded its financial and program management capability. However, OCFO has less technical ability to oversee contracts than the program offices and has no greater ability to address management and other issues within DOE.

The Department’s annual performance plan has improved substantially since its inception, when the Subcommittee found ‘‘considerable inconsistency among the quality of information provided

by the program offices,’’ and that many of the goals provided ‘‘no

basis for the evaluation of performance, and, as a result, in no way

assist in the purposes of the Government Performance and Results

Act.’’ The annual performance plan for fiscal year 2000 clearly details goals for the coming year as components of the goals included

in the tri-annual strategic plan.

The refinement of the annual performance plan reflects the full

and frank relationship between the Subcommittee and the OCFO.

Communications on the plan’s development have aided the Department in responding to the desire of the Subcommittee with regard

to the plan and have kept the Subcommittee apprised of issues as

goals have changed due to unforeseen circumstances.

III. USEFULNESS

It is the Subcommittee staff’s view that the Results Act provides

a useful tool for evaluating agency goals and measuring progress.

Today, DOE is generally confounded by a management maze, irreconcilable regulatory requirements, and insufficient skills in critical areas necessary to solve its own dilemmas. In such an environment, the usefulness of the Results Act is limited.
(42)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT

FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

In 1997, the United States Agency for International Development

[USAID] created an Agency Strategic Plan which presented six

strategic goals in development and humanitarian assistance and

one management goal as the basis for measuring the effectiveness

of its programs. These 6 development and humanitarian assistance

goals are to: (1) encourage broad-based economic growth and agricultural development; (2) strengthen democracy and good governance; (3) build human capacity through education and training; (4)

stabilize and protect world population and human health; (5) protect the world’s environment for long-term sustained ability; and

(6) increase the numbers of lives saved, reduce suffering associated

with natural or man-made disasters, and reestablish conditions

necessary for political and/or economic development. The management goal is that USAID remain a premier bilateral development

agency.

The Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Performance Plan uses the goals

described in the Strategic Plan to provide details as to how USAID

will achieve its quantitative development goals and indicators that

will be used for the coming year.

USAID’s measures are results oriented and are not based on the

number of activities such as grants awarded or persons trained.

However, the goals are too ambiguous to lend themselves to credible evaluations of success or measurement of benchmarks toward

that success. USAID needs to develop regional performance plans

tailored to local requirements that spell out expectations for performance as well as 5 year trends.

Though subject to past criticism for its methods of assessment,

USAID continues to rely on country level statistics obtained from

secondary sources, mostly international institutions such as the

World Bank, the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for its data. In responding to

Subcommittee inquiries, USAID stated:

‘‘USAID is largely dependent upon secondary data generated at the country level. It is difficult for USAID program staff to evaluate the reliability of all of the data in

their annual performance reports. Primary data collection

(e.g. through surveys) is costly and usually occurs on a biannual basis or less frequently. Thus data reporting generally lags by at least 2 years. USAID’s Performance Plan

reporting is based on ‘projected actuals’ which are derived

by using trend lines. USAID is continuously assessing the

costs of data collection versus the benefits of alternative

uses for these funds.’’
43

USAID noted that it continues to consult with other U.S. Government foreign affairs agencies within the framework of the International Affairs Strategic Plan. At the start of this interchange in

1998, coordination on sustainable development issues was considered by USAID as low to medium. USAID stated that they expect

this level to improve to medium to high by the end of the 1999 fiscal year.

The Subcommittee continues to urge USAID and the State Department, as the principal agents for the U.S. Government in international affairs, to work together to ensure that they are coordinating policy and program efforts. The Subcommittee understands

that consultations have been ongoing between the department and

the agency, and the Subcommittee encourages the rapid creation of

a quantitative mechanism to ensure that these tools are in place.

Many U.S. Government departments and agencies are involved

in international programs that can be related to USAID’s goals and

objectives. For example, the GAO noted that in fiscal year 1998,

Congress authorized the Department of Defense to provide about

$50 million in overseas humanitarian, disaster and civic aid.

In addition to the State Department, the Subcommittee also has

oversight over some of the programs which exist in the following

agencies which do not coordinate their efforts on a regular basis

with USAID: Department of Commerce; Department of Energy; Department of Treasury through the African Development Bank and

Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the

Asian Development Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Development Association

and the International Monetary Fund; the African Development

Foundation; the Inter-American Foundation; and the Peace Corps.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

USAID does not have the resources or capacity to be the sole

source of information for its agency data. In its Fiscal Year 2000

Annual Performance Plan, USAID cites the use of statistics from

World Bank, United Nations and other international organizations

for the data for future reports.

USAID acknowledges the concerns expressed by those within the

Agency, at OMB and from Capitol Hill about the reliance on external sources for validation of their programs. USAID states in its

plan that it will continue to work to identify performance goals and

indicators that better measure annual performance levels.

The Subcommittee appreciates the long term aspects of USAID’s

programs and its limited ability to obtain statistics for assessment

of benchmarks for its programs, especially in the areas of humanitarian assistance, democracy and governance, and environmental

programs. The Subcommittee hopes to work with USAID to create

the tools for assessing its goals.

III. HIGH RISK PROBLEMS

The GAO identified the following specific areas of concern for

USAID:

—(A) USAID has not implemented a comprehensive information

management system; and

—(B) USAID’s financial management information is unreliable.
44

GAO noted that ‘‘while an acknowledgement of a major management challenge is a good first step, there is concern about the absence or vagueness for goals in certain areas. Without specific and

measurable performance goals, it is difficult, if not impossible to assess progress in addressing problems and to hold agencies accountable.’’ USAID provided the Subcommittee with an update of the status

of the high risk problems. The following is a summary of USAID’s

assessment:

(A) New Management System.—USAID is still working to implement a New Management System [NMS]. In 1994, NMS was designed as a custom built set of modules which were to provide enhanced program management capabilities. Unfortunately, in

USAID’s own words, ‘‘NMS failed to perform as planned because of

communication, technological and management problems.’’ NMS will be implemented over the next 3 fiscal years and will

support accounting, procurement, budgeting and program operating

functions. The Subcommittee will continue to closely monitor the

Agency’s progress and its attempts to complete renovation and implementation of the system as projected in fiscal year 2000.

(B) Financial Management.—USAID’s vulnerabilities in financial

management were addressed in the Fiscal Year 1999 Annual Performance Plan. USAID’s Office of Financial Management has created a strategic plan to move USAID, in their words, to ‘‘a more

responsive, effective, collaborative, and customer-oriented financial

management system.’’ GAO noted in its review of the Annual Performance Plan that ‘‘USAID’s effort to correct design and implement problems with its

financial and management system reflected consistence between

their strategies and goals.’’

IV. CONSULTATIONS

USAID staff did not consult with the Subcommittee on its performance plan. USAID states that ‘‘the traditional budget structure

does not link resources to performance goals. The Agency does a

‘cross walk’ where it assigns resources from all of the Agency’s program budget accounts to specific goals.’’ USAID has been criticized

for its inability to provide a stronger link between performance

goals and budgetary priorities.

V. USEFULNESS

USAID went through each of its goals and described the methods

USAID would use to assess achievement of its performance goals.

The Annual Performance Plan varied in its assessment of USAID’s

ability to reach its goals; at times the reader felt that the determination was more optimistic than realistic. The Subcommittee

looks forward to the Fiscal Year 2000 Performance Report to fully

analyze USAID’s ability to make and achieve its goals.

By its own admission, there is a decline between funding assessments and performance by USAID. The Agency has a three tiered

system of performance assessment and budgetary priority: the individual units of operation, the field mission and finally, Washington

headquarters. The individual units and field missions continually

monitor performance of each of their programs. Washington also
45

monitors performance and holds formal reviews of bureau-wide performances in conjunction with budgetary requests.

USAID takes performance and goals and budgetary capabilities

into consideration at annual budget reviews. With each of these

tiers, though, priorities can be altered from initial performance assessments, and normally the rating declines in ranking. GAO noted

that USAID should also develop a clear linkage between broad development goals and specific USAID country program goal results.

The Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Performance Plan provided the

Subcommittee with an impression of how USAID will attain their

goals within the next year. The Subcommittee will find it difficult

to assess USAID’s specific contribution to enhancing global sustainable development programs while relying on secondary sources or

dated information as its primary tools for analysis.

The Subcommittee urges USAID to formulate a more detailed approach in the creation of its Annual Performance Plan. USAID

should develop regional performance plans tailored to local requirements that spell out expectations for performance as well as five

year trends.
(46)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The various bureaus within the Department of the Interior [DOI]

have generally taken steps to focus their goals and performance

measures on the most important objectives. For example, the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service reduced its annual performance goals

from 45 to 15, and the Bureau of Land Management reduced the

number of its annual performance goals from 61 to 46. The U.S.

Geological Survey now has two broad annual performance goals

and ten quantitative performance measures that cover all program

activities relative to the agency’s mission. This streamlining has

had an effect of tightening the performance plans and making them

more understandable. It remains to be seen, however, whether the

aggregation or merging of performance goals will lead to a lessened

sense of accountability or accomplishment, and, in turn, reduced

performance on the part of programs within the agency that are

now only part of a broader, more generic performance goal. It is

critical that there be awareness at the field station level of the

broader agency goals as well as the specific contribution of each

field station to the furtherance of these goals.

In general, the DOI bureaus have been successful in developing

relevant, outcome oriented goals. The performance plans of various

agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still contain

output-related measures, but the occurrence of such measures has

diminished.

The majority of goals and measures established in the performance plans of DOI bureaus appear to be realistic and reasonably

challenging based on available data. In many cases, however, it remains difficult to evaluate whether agency goals and measures are

appropriate due to the limited baseline data available for many

programs and activities. Some of the agency goals reveal planning

problems. For example, a part of one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service goals states, ‘‘80 percent of the contaminated cleanup

projects will be completed according to their original schedule’’. If

a goal is only to meet a certain percentage of an originally scheduled plan, then it is very possible that the original planning/scheduling targets were unreasonable.

Given that the accuracy and reliability of performance data are

critical to the successful evaluation of agency performance, DOI bureaus have not made sufficient progress in describing data

verification and validation processes as part of their performance

plans. While some improvements have been made, many bureau

plans do not sufficiently identify data limitations or data system requirements and how such limitations or systems availability would

impact performance measures. To demonstrate to the Sub-
47

committee that bureau or program level performance is not being

‘‘gamed,’’ the Department must make further efforts to ensure the

accuracy, consistency and reliability of performance data, and to

convey this information in its performance plans. It should be

noted, however, that data collection bearing on performance measurement is not without cost. The Subcommittee recognizes that additional resources have been sought by a number of bureaus in fiscal year 2000 to initiate or enhance performance-related data collection, and that the Subcommittee has not been able to provide

these additional resources in all cases. The Subcommittee will continue to work with the bureaus to prioritize data collection needs

and make data collection more efficient and less expensive where

possible.

The performance goals of each agency appear to be broadly representative and balanced in the treatment of competing demands

within each agency, and appear to reflect the statutory missions of

the various agencies.

The DOI bureaus’ fiscal year 2000 performance plans provide

somewhat improved treatment of cross-cutting initiatives, particularly with respect to intra-agency cross-program initiatives. The

Department’s plan as a whole does not, however, attempt to reexamine the fundamental organization and functions of the natural

resource agencies as the GAO has suggested is warranted as part

of performance planning. Neither do the plans tend to contain sufficient substantive discussion of inter-bureau or inter-departmental

work in pursuit of common goals. While the Department’s performance plan does identify and discuss four specific crosscutting efforts, it does not attempt to address the much broader array of programmatic areas in which the DOI bureaus and/or other Departments would seem to have common goals and performance measurement requirements.

The Forest Service is currently undergoing public review of its

draft revised GPRA strategic plan which is scheduled for completion in September 2000. The new draft plan focuses more on outcomes or results which are absent from its current plan. Due to

this omission, the current plan does not enable the agency to objectively evaluate annual accomplishments and link them to its strategic plan. For fiscal year 2001 and beyond, the agency plans to

provide this link in large part through proposed new performance

measures which are included within the framework of a new

streamlined budget structure. Each of the performance measures

within the annual budget is linked to specific goals and objectives

contained in the strategic plan.

The Subcommittee is reviewing with great concern the agency’s

proposed new budget structure and related performance measures.

Given the longstanding difficulties with the agency’s fiscal accountability, drastically reducing the number of the agency’s line items

in order to provide ‘‘big bucket’’ financing of its programs could lead

to less accountability rather than more. The performance measures

which the agency claims will provide accountability are new, and

little historical data is available to assess how the agency’s current

performance based on these measures compares to previous years.

Moreover, many of the performance measures do not appear to be

performance measures so much as workload measures. That is,
48

they only indicate what the agency will do with appropriated dollars, not how well they will do it. The Subcommittee expects to

have a lengthy dialogue with the Forest Service on the use of performance measures in its budget and for use in assessing the

achievement of GPRA strategic plan goals and objectives.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

The DOI’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan provides a

standard format for identifying data collection methodology and

sources, as well as validation of this data among the different bureaus. While this format provided a valuable overview of the different systems being developed or currently in use by the department to provide and ensure credible performance-related data, it

was relatively broad and non-specific in its treatment of the systems.

The Subcommittee is nevertheless aware that the Department

and several individual bureaus are attempting in several instances

to upgrade or modify information systems in order to better support their performance plans. Collection of specific performance

data and the information systems required to manage such data

may often require additional resources. The Subcommittee will continue to work with the bureaus to prioritize information system

needs necessary to produce credible performance reports, but is

mindful that the usefulness of a data set or information system

often does not correlate to its size, complexity, or expense.

The DOI performance plans do not address in great detail the

weaknesses or limitations of the performance data that is being collected, though the plans of the Bureau of Land Management and

the Fish and Wildlife Service have improved in this regard.

The Forest Service has proposed a multitude of new performance

measures as part of its fiscal year 2001 budget. These measures

are linked to the agency’s revised GPRA strategic plan goals and

objectives. Since these measures are new, it is unclear whether the

data necessary to determine these measures is unreliable. However, the agency has recognized problems with data collection and

reliability in a number of areas which would appear to call into

question performance measures based on such information. For example, some performance indicators related to programs under the

National Forest System appropriation will rely on data collected

through the agency’s Management Attainment Reporting [MAR]

system. Current checks are not in place to ensure that this data

is complete, accurate and consistent with other data sources. Another significant problem with data collection in the agency has

been the interpretation of definitions used for individual data elements, such as ‘‘deferred maintenance.’’ The agency needs to do a

better job of ensuring that definitions are consistently applied and

interpreted across all regions and levels of the agency.

III. HIGH RISK PROBLEMS

In January 1999, GAO published a report identifying high-risk

problems in Federal agencies. GAO identified as a high-risk management problem DOI’s management of the $3 billion Indian trust

fund, which has long been characterized by inadequate accounting

and information systems, untrained and inexperienced staff, poor
49

record keeping and internal controls, and inadequate written policies and procedures. The Office of the Special Trustee was created

specifically to ensure that the Department establishes appropriate

policies and procedures, develops necessary systems, and takes affirmative action to reform the management of Indian trust funds.

Thus, each of the agency’s performance goals addresses the problem highlighted by GAO.

GAO identified as an additional high-risk management problem

DOI’s distribution of about $800 million each year in Tribal Priority Allocations [TPA] in a manner which does not take into consideration the tribes’ changing needs, the tribes’ own revenues, or

the funds necessary to fund fully the tribal programs. The Bureau

of Indian Affairs’ [BIA] performance goals do not address the problem highlighted by GAO. Indeed, BIA recently provided a report to

the Congress on TPA in which it explicitly rejected any consideration of tribal revenues and any redistribution of TPA ‘‘base’’ funds

in response to changing needs. This continues to be a matter of

great concern to the Subcommittee as a matter of both GPRA planning and fundamental fairness.

The Forest Service has had persistent problems with respect to

its financial systems. The agency’s financial statements have been

subject to annual audit by the USDA Inspector General and GAO

since fiscal year 1991. However, the agency has yet to receive a

clean audit opinion, despite repeated promises to improve its performance. GAO added the Forest Service to its list of agencies at

‘‘high risk’’ of waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement due to the

unreliability of the agency’s financial statements. The Forest Service has implemented a new accounting system designed to cure

these problems. In addition, the agency also believes that its proposed new budget structure and performance measures will help

ameliorate its fiscal accountability problems. Even if true, it is unlikely that the agency can obtain a clean opinion for several years.

The Subcommittee remains very concerned about financial management and accountability at the Forest Service.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

The Department and its individual bureaus have generally been

forthright and timely in their consultations with the Subcommittee

on performance plans.

The Department of Energy programs within the Subcommittee’s

jurisdiction have done a less thorough job of consultation.

Consultations with the Department have in some instances resulted in changes in specific performance goals or measurements,

but have been primarily useful in providing a forum in which to

convey to the Department ways in which the performance plans

can be made more understandable and more useful to the Subcommittee.

All agencies must do a better job of continuing consultations with

the Subcommittee regarding changes in goals, performance plan

structure and performance measurements. The agencies must also

do a better job of discussing annual budget requests in relation to

individual performance plans.

The Department has a planning office that is separate from the

Office of Budget, but both report to the Deputy Assistant Secretary
50

for Budget and Finance. This is also the typical design for DOI bureaus (i.e. separate offices reporting to the same higher authority),

although the BIA has planning and budget staff in the same office,

and Geological Survey has at least one person in the budget office

who works on GPRA issues.

The existence of two separate offices has at times impeded effective cooperation and consultation in the development of GPRA

plans. In a number of cases, information contained in fiscal year

2000 budget documents does not match information contained in

performance plans. The National Park Service is one example. The

Department is encouraged to emphasize closer working relationships between budget and planning offices.

The Forest Service has attempted to actively consult with the

Subcommittee concerning its proposed budget structure changes

and related performance measures. However, despite the Subcommittee’s request to have this information provided well before

the fiscal year 2001 budget submittal, the agency was unable to do

so. This delay will hamper the Subcommittee’s ability to fully consider these proposed changes and to work with the agency on how

improvements could be made in this regard. Timely responses to

the Subcommittee’s requests will better facilitate the achievement

of GPRA goals in the future.

V. USEFULNESS

While the Department’s bureau sub-plans make for a lengthy annual performance plan, most of the individual bureau plans have

made significant improvements in terms of user-friendliness. The

Department has developed a relatively consistent format for each

of the bureau plans and has streamlined the plans so that there

are fewer, more focused goals and measures. In most cases, one

need not read the individual performance plans in conjunction with

the budgets, as there has been an attempt to link the performance

plans to budgetary information. In some cases there are inconsistencies with the agency budget and the performance plans.

The DOI bureaus have generally tried to link funding resources

to performance goals. The component plans, however, did not always clearly relate the program activities in the President’s budget

to performance goals. For example, it was not always clear how the

funding for budget program activities would be allocated to performance goals in the plans of BIA, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Geological Survey, on the other hand, was relatively successful in showing the relationship between performance goals and budget activities. For

the performance plans to be truly useful to the Subcommittee in

evaluating agency budget requests, this linkage must be more

clearly and carefully established across all Department bureaus.

The Department of Energy programs under the Subcommittee’s

jurisdiction have fallen short in linking performance goals to budget activities. While the Department has shown some improvement

by more consistently stating the reasons for annual increases or decreases requested for particular budget activities, the relationship

between these budgetary changes and annual performance goals is

not clearly established. The budget justification is replete with statistics on energy savings, emissions reductions and other perform-
51

ance measures for specific programs, but there is little or no discussion of whether the budget requests for these programs are driven

or influenced by these measures. In short, it is difficult to tell

whether the Department is directing resources to the programs

that get the ‘‘biggest bang for the buck,’’ or, if not, why not.

Given the general lack of baseline data for many performance

measures and the still shaky linkage between most agency performance plans and budget documents, the performance plans are

generally not yet useful for making funding decisions. There are exceptions, however, and most of the plans demonstrate potential to

become valuable decision-making tools once reliable baseline data

is developed and once clearer relationships are established to agency budgets.

Any improvements to the plan that allow the Subcommittee to

focus on the most critical issues in the plan would be valuable. The

Subcommittee will benefit from the streamlined performance goals

that many agencies adopted, as well as the consistent format that

was developed to make the plans more user-friendly. While there

is the benefit of more focused, streamlined information in the plan,

it is only useful if there is an underlying dedication to ensuring the

accuracy of the data from the field to the regional and national offices. The credibility of the performance plans over time will further be measured by the openness of the agencies in assessing the

strengths and weaknesses of their respective plans (e.g. data measurement, validation, choice of goals, etc.), and providing that information to the Subcommittee. These documents are not solely intended to be a mechanism for justifying budgetary increases, but

rather to provide an accurate picture of agency performance that

will serve as the guide for future direction.
(52)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN

SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The goals and measures of the Department of Labor [DOL] are

focused on important objectives of its programs and activities and

cover key aspects of performance. In general, the performance goals

are comprehensive and explicitly cover all program activities in the

Department’s budget, as required under the Results Act and related guidance.

The Department’s plan includes several goals and measures that

are expressed as outcomes as well as several measures that are expressed as processes or activities. In several instances, the Department has developed outcome goals where it is logical to do so. Also,

its fiscal year 2000 performance plan is an improvement over its

1999 plan in that some prior goals were modified to better focus

on outcomes. While some of the Department’s goals and measures

are focused on processes or activities, the use of such goals and

measures is not necessarily inappropriate. One such goal, for example, is meeting or exceeding standards for promptness in paying

worker claims for unemployment insurance and deciding appeals.

The levels of performance DOL seeks to attain, as reflected in its

plan, are understandable in light of, among other things, what is

known about past program performance. However, it is difficult to

judge how challenging all of the goals and measures are without

past performance information for each goal. The first agency annual performance reports (based on their fiscal year 1999 performance plans) are due this spring. As agencies begin reporting on the

actual levels of performance they have achieved, determining how

challenging performance goals are will become easier. Another complicating factor is that DOL lacks baseline data against which to

measure some goals.

In general, the Department’s performance goals are objective,

measurable, and quantifiable. While baseline data are shown for

most indicators that can be used to compare past performance with

projected performance, baseline data have not been established for

several performance goals. For example, one performance goal is to

increase by 2 percent over fiscal year 1999 the percent of those

leaving the Trade Adjustment Assistance and the North American

Free Trade Agreement-Trade Adjustment Assistance programs

that: (1) get a job immediately; and (2) still have jobs 13 weeks

later. The plan notes, however, that a 1999 baseline will be established when a new reporting system under development provides

data on performance. Another problem is that some goals and

measures are based on old data and thus do not depict current conditions. For example, one performance goal is to reduce three of the
53

most prevalent workplace injuries and causes of illnesses by 7 percent from baseline levels in selected industries and occupations.

However, the baseline data for assessing workplace injuries are

over 4 years old, raising concerns that some of the Department’s

performance measures may not provide timely assessments of performance.

One of the improvements in the Department’s fiscal year 2000

plan over its 1999 plan is the elimination of some performance

goals that were of limited value or questionable validity because

they did not sufficiently measure performance and/or could lead to

unintended consequences. In the 1999 plan, for example, DOL presented performance goals that used the number of complaints received as indicators of compliance with worker protection and civil

rights laws. Such measures could have the unintended consequence

of encouraging management to discourage the filing of otherwise

meritorious complaints. In the fiscal year 2000 plan, DOL eliminated such measures.

Although the Department’s goals discuss efforts to work with

other Federal agencies, the plan does not identify specific actions

DOL will take to ensure effective interaction with other Federal

agencies. Specifically, the plan does not identify common or complementary performance goals and measures elsewhere in the Federal government that relate to the Department’s goals and measures. For example, although two performance goals relate to helping veterans find jobs, no mention is made of how DOL will work

with other Federal agencies, such as the Department of Veterans

Affairs. In addition, to assist youth in making the transition from

school to work, DOL stated in its plan that, working with the Department of Education [DOE], it will continue to expand school-towork activities and will build partnerships at the State and local

levels that include employers, organized labor, community leaders,

educators, and parents. However, the plan provides no information

specifying what is being done with DOE to jointly achieve these

goals and how all these partnerships will help DOL achieve its goal

of engaging youth in school-to-work activities.

While mission fragmentation and program overlap are relatively

straightforward to identify, determining whether overlapping programs are actually duplicative requires a much more in-depth analysis of program goals, the means to achieve them, and the targeted

recipients. While this task is difficult, DOL could use its Results

Act plans as a mechanism to address such challenges. But, as

noted above, the Department’s fiscal year 2000 plan does not adequately describe how it will actively work with other agencies to

ensure that the Department’s goals are achieved. This is a challenge for DOL, especially in light of the Department’s decentralized

structure and the numerous Federal, State, and local partners that

share responsibility for its programs. For example, not only does

DOL itself have 22 offices, many with overlapping responsibilities,

but for many of its programs, such as job training, enforcement of

workplace standards, and collection of economic and workforce statistics, DOL must work with State and local governments or nongovernmental organizations that often manage the Department’s

programs on a day-to-day basis. The 1996 welfare reform legislation and the Department’s welfare-to-work grant program created
54

in 1997, combined with the passage of the Workforce Investment

Act in 1998, have affected the nation’s job training system in ways

that are now just beginning to become apparent. The developments

require DOL to re-evaluate its approach and reach out more effectively to other departments, especially the Department of Health

and Human Services.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

The Department lacks adequate information to assess whether

many of its programs are operating efficiently and are producing

intended results. In its plan, DOL recognizes that it faces challenges in overcoming three performance measurement issues: (1)

lack of data, (2) insufficient data, and (3) untimely reporting. The

Department further notes that data are missing in some areas and

that data integrity is an issue in other areas where existing measures are insufficiently precise or are unreliable. These problems

raise concerns about the Department’s ability to accurately measure the extent to which performance goals are achieved. The Department identifies some activities planned to address the quality

of its data. It will, for example, develop a departmentwide information technology architecture as well as departmentwide data standards to facilitate the efficient collection of timely and reliable program data by the DOL components. However, DOL does not provide enough specific information on the details of its efforts to provide readers a clear understanding of how or when such efforts will

improve the quality of its performance information.

While DOL identifies data system shortcomings in one section of

its plan, it states in another section that these same data systems

are reliable. Overall, the Department’s plan does not adequately

describe how the lack of complete, timely, and reliable data may affect its ability to assess its performance goals. For example, DOL

notes that GAO and the Office of Inspector General have raised

concerns about Job Corps data, but there is no discussion of how

these concerns affect the measurement of the performance goal related to the Job Corps program. While the plan discusses some

strategies for overcoming data weaknesses and limitations, the

plan does not provide sufficient information on how or when these

limitations will be overcome.

III. CONSULTATION

The Department did conduct a series of formal consultations with

the House and the Senate Subcommittees on its current strategic

plan.

IV. USEFULNESS

The Department’s plan is fairly well organized and in many

cases effectively uses graphics to inform the reader. In its plan,

DOL presents 42 performance goals and 122 means and strategies

with which to achieve its goals. This number of goals and strategies strikes a balance between presenting so few as not to provide

a comprehensive picture of agencywide performance and presenting

so many that a reader is overwhelmed. In some instances, the

means and strategies presented do not identify how they would
55

help achieve the stated goal. For example, one performance goal

states that 60 percent of local employment and training offices will

be part of one-stop career center systems. In a related strategy,

DOL states that it will ‘‘continue its support of the adoption and

implementation of continuous improvement initiatives throughout

the workforce development system,’’ but does not indicate how

these efforts will help achieve the one-stop career center performance goal.

In general, the Department’s performance plan clearly aligns the

agency’s annual performance goals and its current strategic goals.

To establish the connection between annual and longer-term strategic goals, DOL links multiple annual goals to intermediate goals,

referred to as ‘‘outcome goals’’ in the plan. These intermediate

goals describe the anticipated results of the agency’s programs and

activities relative to the strategic goals. Each strategic goal is

linked to multiple intermediate goals. The plan also incorporates

an appendix that shows the relationship among all of the Department’s program and budget activities and its strategic goals.

The Department’s plan provides a generally clear picture of intended performance across the agency and provides a general discussion of strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve

its goals. In general, the performance goals and measures are objective, clear, and measurable. In these respects, the plan is a useful document.

The Department could improve its plan by showing how specific

program activities and their funding relate to more discrete sets of

performance goals. For example, the plan explicitly describes incremental funding requests for new initiatives by strategic goal, but

broadly aggregates the Department’s total budget across the three

strategic goals. In addition, DOL needs to improve the quality of

data being used to measure performance and state in its plan when

it will do so. The Department could also improve its plan by better

explaining how its stated strategies will help DOL achieve individual performance goals.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

BACKGROUND ON THE HHS FISCAL YEAR 2000 PERFORMANCE PLAN

The Health and Human Services [HHS] Fiscal Year 2000 Annual

Performance Plan, which was submitted to the Congress as a component of the Justification of Estimates of the President’s Fiscal

Year 2000 Budget, consists of several documents: the HHS Fiscal

Year 2000 Performance Plan Summary and the HHS Operating Division performance plans, which are incorporated directly into the

fiscal year 2000 budget documents. A description of the information

contained in these documents follows:

—The Performance Plan Summary provides the overall Departmental context for the plans, demonstrates how HHS’ performance goals and measures support the HHS strategic plan, and

addresses performance measurement challenges for HHS.

—The Operating Division annual performance plans include performance goals and measures for all of HHS’ program activities

and provide the linkage to the budget that is critical to the

GPRA requirements for annual performance plans.
56

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

As required by the Results Act, HHS has established a strategic

plan that identifies the critical and fundamental long-term performance objectives that HHS seeks to achieve with funds appropriated for HHS and its programs. In turn, the HHS operating divisions establish annual goals and targets for their program activities that are consistent with the program’s budget request, the legislative intent of the program and the relevant long-term goals set

out in the strategic plan. In this way, the goals and measures established by the Operating Divisions are not only focused on the

objectives of the program activity, but also on the long-term goals

the Department hopes to achieve.

For the most part, the Department’s goals are results-oriented.

Throughout its agencies and programs, HHS has defined a balance

of outcome, output and process measures in its performance plan.

While HHS seeks to measure its results with measures of program

outcomes as a matter of routine, in some cases it is not able to include these because of the lack of data to measure performance, or

because of the need to work with performance partners (such as

States) to develop mutually agreed upon outcomes. When using capacity and process measures, HHS programs have provided clear

linkage between the achievement of these measures and longerterm outcome objectives as appropriate.

HHS has set goals and measures that are consistent with the

legislative intent of its programs and of the Results Act, as well as

with the long-term outcomes the agency hopes to achieve. HHS has

attempted to set goals and targets that are challenging, but could

realistically be met.

Reliability of data was a key criterion in the selection of performance goals for the HHS fiscal year 1999 and fiscal year 2000 performance plans. Any limitations on the reliability of the data used

to measure goals are discussed in the appropriate sections of the

performance plan. The Department’s performance goals and measures for programs administered by performance partners rely for

the most part on data sources that have supported program decision-making for many years. Where it is appropriate, standards for

the validation and verification of data from such performance partners will be consistent with the intended purpose of the data,

which is to ‘‘inform’’ decision-making processes. The HHS Fiscal

Year 2000 Performance Plan Summary includes a Departmentwide discussion of the data challenges faced by HHS programs and

their implementation partners. More detailed, program-specific discussions of data issues are included in the individual performance

plans of the HHS agencies.

HHS and its Operating Divisions have made an effort to ensure

that performance goals will be high-quality indicators of performance. Because of the way that HHS programs intersect with those

of State and other non-Federal partners, HHS pursues program

performance measurement with the cooperation and authoritative

participation of its partners. HHS has developed performance goals

and measures with a focused outcome in mind. HHS seeks to identify high-quality performance data that will inform deliberations of
57

HHS and other decision-makers in improving the programs that

serve the health and human service needs of the public.

Throughout the implementation of the Results Act, HHS has encouraged its programs to coordinate with other programs, both

within and outside the Department, that share objectives or serve

similar customer groups and to briefly discuss this coordination in

their performance plans. Due to the extensive involvement and authority of non-Federal partners in program implementation and

management, HHS programs have consulted significantly with

their program partners and stakeholders in the identification of

program outcomes and the development of goals and data sources

to measure progress towards those outcomes. For example, the

Health Care Financing Administration has led negotiations with

the States to develop a goal and targets pertaining to the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The Health Resources and Services Administration and Office of Public Health Service have

agreed to use the same goal.

Evidence of the coordination of crosscutting activities can be

found in both the Performance Plan Summary and in the Operating Divisions’ annual performance plans. The Summary serves as

the source document for understanding the cross-cutting, coordinated nature of HHS approaches to meeting the long-term objectives of the Department. The Summary also highlights coordination

efforts across the Federal government. Program-specific discussions

of coordination activities can also be found in the Operating Division annual performance plans.

Many of the programs administered by HHS involve goals and

objectives that are shared by other programs within the Department and by other agencies and departments within the Federal

government. The overlap between these programs could be viewed

as being duplicative and redundant. However, they often involve a

range of interventions that are dissimilar and represent complementary—rather than duplicative—approaches. For example, in

the tobacco programs, several agencies contribute to the Department’s goals to reduce tobacco use, especially among youth. The

Food and Drug Administration and Substance Abuse and Mental

Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] programs limit tobacco

access to minors with an emphasis on enforcement, National Institutes of Health conducts research on nicotine addiction, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promotes smoking cessation and prevention programs directed at youth. In some cases,

the programs differ from one another because of uncertainty about

what will work. In such cases, the range of interventions represents natural experiments and provides information to society

about the most effective approach.

DATA RELIABILITY

For the most part, HHS agencies collect data from reliable data

systems that have informed decision-making for several years.

However, the reporting requirements of the Results Act do not adequately accommodate the needs of States, local governments, universities, other grantees and other performance partners in reporting about program performance. Traditionally, reporting of program data by such entities requires significantly longer time
58

frames than those defined in GPRA. Non-Federal program performance partners participate in GPRA voluntarily because they are not

specifically required by GPRA to be held accountable for the performance reporting required under the Act. Because they are often

the sole sources for the information on outcomes that is most valuable for GPRA assessment, HHS has pursued voluntary cooperation of performance partners in providing data to assess program

performance under GPRA.

II. HIGH-RISK PROBLEMS

In January 1999, GAO published a report identifying high-risk

problems identified in Federal agencies. In his letter to Secretary

Shalala on the matter, Senator Thompson, chairman of the Senate

Governmental Affairs Committee, acknowledged the positive efforts

of HHS to develop performance goals for management challenges

identified by the GAO and the HHS Office of the Inspector General. In its fiscal year 2000 plan, HHS had direct goals for 12 of

14 areas identified as weaknesses. The Subcommittee will continue

to monitor HHS’ efforts to rectify these high-risk problems.

III. CONSULTATIONS

GPRA requires consultation with Congress on strategic plans.

HHS did conduct a series of formal consultations with committees

of the House and the Senate on its current strategic plan, and will

do so in the upcoming revision. HHS did not consult formally on

performance plans, since the Act does not require it.

The Budget Office within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for

Management and Budget has the lead for the implementation of

GPRA across HHS. Given the decentralized structure of the separate components of HHS and the disaggregated nature of its performance plan, HHS relies primarily on its Operating Divisions to

develop annual goals and measures for individual programs.

IV. USEFULNESS

HHS and its Operating Divisions have worked to make the HHS

Performance Plan Summary and the Operating Division performance plans clear, coherent and user-friendly. HHS has attempted to

make its presentation of performance as informative and useful as

possible to a wide array of audiences.

The HHS Performance Plan consists of the HHS Performance

Plan Summary and the individual Operating Division Performance

Plans. The HHS Performance Plan Summary provides the linkage

between the Departmental strategic objectives and the annual performance measures used by each operating division and program to

achieve these longer-term objectives. The Operating Divisions base

the annual goals and targets for each program activity on the

longer-term objectives established in the strategic plan, the legislative intent of the program activity (i.e. its programmatic intent and

daily operations), and the budget request for the program activity.

Each Operating Division Performance Plan provides detailed performance information by program activity that addresses these

linkages.
59

As greater amounts of reliable and valid performance information become available, the Performance Plan may become more useful as a tool for making budget decisions. However, until performance information matures over time, the utility of the performance

plans will be somewhat limited. In addition, observations of performance data for a single year will not be particularly definitive

or valuable in making decisions about program improvements or

funding levels.

Over the last year, HHS has responded to valid OMB criticisms

that plans across HHS lacked standardization. As a result, the

HHS-wide GPRA Management Team developed a standardized

presentation format that all HHS components will apply to fiscal

year 2001 performance plans and reports. It is anticipated that

these changes will make the plans more useful and informative.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

In general, the performance goals and measures for the Department of Education [DOE] are fairly comprehensive and relate to

nearly all of the Department’s budgeted programs and activities.

In general, DOE’s performance objectives and measures are results-oriented. They focus on improving conditions or expanding opportunities for students and other stakeholders such as teachers or

DOE employees. For example, one DOE objective is to have a talented and dedicated teacher in every classroom in America. One of

the performance measures states that throughout the nation, the

percentage of secondary school teachers who have at least a minor

degree in the subject they teach will increase annually. Another objective states that greater public school choice will be available to

students and families. Performance measures provide that by 2003,

25 percent of all public school students in grades 3–12 will attend

a school that they or their parents have chosen.

It is difficult to judge how challenging all of the goals and measures are without past performance information for each goal. As required for all agencies, DOE’s first annual performance report is

due this spring. Once agencies begin reporting on the actual levels

of performance they have achieved, determining how challenging

performance goals are will become easier.

Many of the performance goals and measures in the agencywide

performance plan were generally objective, measurable, and quantifiable, but many in the individual program performance plans

were not. The Subcommittee noted that many of the performance

measures for individual programs lacked quantifiable baselines or

targeted levels of performance for the fiscal year, which could

hinder the Department’s ability to assess its performance.

The plan calls for the supporting and funding of education programs in the States, localities and universities, and effectively

managing the use of these resources, thereby creating the potential

for competing demands. The Subcommittee believes there is a

sense of balance in how the plan approaches these potential competing demands. As an example, one objective discusses how DOE

will provide greater flexibility to State and local educational agencies while maintaining accountability for program performance.
60

Nearly all objectives in DOE’s plan include a discussion of the coordination the Department will need with other Federal agencies

to achieve the objective and, in general terms, describe the issues

or efforts that require this coordination. But the plan does not

identify or describe common or complementary performance goals

and measures elsewhere in the Federal government that relate to

DOE’s goals and measures; nor do the individual program performance plans discuss coordination or complementary goals and measures.

In its effort to identify duplicate programs, DOE’s performance

plan includes a separate appendix listing agencies with overlapping

or similar programs with which DOE will need to coordinate.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

Data reliability continues to be a problem for DOE. Since the

early 1990s, DOE has been challenged to fully develop accounting

and financial information management systems that would generate complete and accurate data to support its performance plans

and performance reports. DOE’s OIG reported in its fiscal year

1997 audit report that the Department’s financial management systems did not substantially comply with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996. For example, DOE does not

have a subsidiary ledger to track guaranty agency activity for both

loans receivable and reserves held by guaranty agencies. In addition, although it began to use a new integrated financial management system in May 1998, the Department continues to experience

difficulties in implementing and operating this system.

More recently, DOE’s preparation of the fiscal year 1998 financial statements and the related audit were delayed until the Department reconciled the general ledger data and resolved significant differences between the general ledger and other related information. The independent auditor rendered a disclaimer of opinion

on DOE’s fiscal year 1998 financial statements because of serious

deficiencies in the Department’s systems, recordkeeping, documentation, financial reporting, and controls.

In general, the DOE performance plan describes the limitations

of its performance data and its efforts to verify the reliability of

performance measures. For example, for one performance indicator—to annually increase the percentage of students and their

parents who obtain information on the academic requirements for

college or other postsecondary education—the Department acknowledges that no data currently exist on the extent to which students

obtain this information. The plan also says that DOE will supplement any data limitations with the results of evaluation studies it

conducts or contracts out as well as with the results of onsite reviews or routine monitoring by Department staff.

The plan also recognizes that the large number of individual education programs in States, communities, and schools makes it even

more difficult to create sound measurement systems, due to differences in their data collection and reporting techniques, and that

it may take several years to fully develop and implement measures

to improve reliability.

There are instances, however, where the plan recognizes data

limitations, but does not indicate how some of them will be re-
61

solved. For example, there is an objective to ensure that postsecondary students receive the financial aid and support services they

need to complete their education. One indicator for this objective

states that the Department will assess whether the gap in college

graduation rates between low-income and high-income, and minority and nonminority students is decreasing. The Department expects to acquire these data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Study, which is conducted only once every 8 years. Until

these data are available, DOE is using data from another source.

But these data do not capture differences in graduation rates by income level, and the plan does not note how DOE will acquire these

data.

III. HIGH RISK PROBLEMS

Of the five major management challenges GAO identified in the

Department, three are addressed through performance objectives in

the plan. For the other two, the plan describes steps DOE will take

to address the challenges, but does not outline specific goals or objectives to do so.

The Subcommittee believes DOE is committed to addressing

these challenges and has made some progress in addressing management shortcomings, such as reducing the default rate on Federal student loans. The performance plan addresses these challenges; however, progress since its issuance has been sparse. For

example, there is a debate within the Department as to the best

strategy for integrating the information systems supporting the

student aid programs. DOE received a disclaimer of opinion on its

fiscal year 1998 financial statement audit because of weaknesses in

a new automated accounting system, inadequate account reconciliations, and insufficient documentation for transactions.

IV. USEFULNESS

Although it is voluminous (2 volumes totaling around 500 pages),

the Department’s performance plan is generally helpful, informative and relatively easy to navigate. It is well organized—the descriptions for each goal and objective consistently follow the same

format. The plan shows clear linkages between annual goals and

objectives and the strategic plan, the Department’s budget, and its

mission statement. However, the large number of performance objectives and indicators make the plan more difficult to comprehend.

Generally, DOE provides clear linkages between and among the

plan’s annual performance goals, the mission and goals established

in the strategic plan, the budget program activities, and its day-today operations. The order in which performance goals and objectives are described in the performance plan mirrors the organization in the strategic plan. It contains a separate appendix that generally relates each of the Department’s budgeted program activities

to one or more strategic plan goals and objectives. However, the

Subcommittee found a few program activities that were not included in this appendix—in particular, the departmental management account that funds agency operations. Another plan appendix

shows the funding and staffing resources associated with each objective, but it does not explain how these resource levels were determined from the program activities in DEO’s budget request.
62

The description for each strategic objective includes a fairly

lengthy discussion of key strategies for achieving that objective, including the role of budgetary resources and legislative initiatives.

The descriptions also list Department programs that support the

objective.

DOE’s plan provides a general picture of intended performance

across the agency, a general discussion of strategies and resources

the agency will use to achieve its goals, and general confidence that

agency performance information will be credible. In these respects,

the plan is a useful document. The plan includes tables linking performance goals and measures to most budgeted programs and activities. In addition, the plan includes baseline or trend data for

most performance indicators, discusses need for coordination with

other Federal agencies, describes data limitations and verification

of the reliability of performance measures, and shows how evaluations will be used to supplement for performance measurement

shortcomings.

DOE’s plan could be improved by more completely discussing coordination of specific programs with similar programs in other

agencies, as well as coordination of complementary performance

goals and measures, including separate discussions of how capital

assets, mission critical management systems, or human capital will

support achievement of program results, and indicating how existing data limitations will be resolved.
(63)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

Generally, the Department of Transportation’s [DOT] performance goals and measures focus on several of the most important

challenges facing the Department. However, one of the weaknesses

cited by the GAO in its review of the Department’s performance

plan was the lack of a consistent link of the performance goals to

the strategic outcomes and the lack of consistent inclusion of goals

and measures for addressing the management challenges facing

the Department. The Office of Inspector General [OIG] identified

the lack of accountability for financial activities as a key challenge

for DOT. It is too early to tell whether the Department’s recognition of this continuing deficiency has been adequately addressed by

the steps taken in response to the OIG recommendations. Many of

the challenges identified by the GAO and the OIG are long-standing and will require sustained attention by DOT and the Congress.

The Department’s goals and measures are result-oriented, with

the caveats noted above. The plan’s goals and measures are objective, quantifiable, and measurable. For all except a few performance goals, the Department’s plans describe target levels of performance in both annual and multi-year terms.

The Department’s goals and measures vary depending on the

likelihood of meeting the challenge. Almost invariably, the goals

and measures move the Department toward qualitative or quantitative improvement in the safety and performance challenges generally considered to be the primary Federal issues relating to

transportation.

Tradeoffs between competing goals are not readily obvious, and

the Subcommittee has not identified any unintended or perverse effects from the articulated goals or measures. A more relevant concern might be the myriad activities to address a specific initiative,

i.e., the identified high-risk information technology initiative for

the Federal Aviation Administration’s [FAA] air traffic control modernization program. The DOT plan could be focused and significantly improved in this specific area by consistently including goals

and measures for addressing endemic, long-term problems facing

the Department in the procurement, information technology, and financial management arenas.

The DOT performance plan notes the obvious cross-cutting activities at other Federal agencies, but the Subcommittee believes that

cross-cutting issues present an area ripe for efficiencies or for goal

specialization. For example, the plan states that both the FAA and

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have similar

performance goals in the area of aviation fatalities. However, the

plan is thin on the nature of the coordination or in describing the

relative roles played by the respective agencies in meeting that
64

goal. Further, several possible shared goals with other agencies are

either not articulated at this point or are not areas in which DOT

envisions management or programmatic advantages from greater

coordination. Another danger of plans built with substantial cross

agency participation and support is that, unless the additional

agencies share the Department’s enthusiasm for the program the

Department can quickly find itself the single parent of a very resource-demanding program in its infancy. Greater coordination and

reconciling of plans and budget submissions should help foster

cross-departmental initiatives.

The current plan does not identify crosscutting programs.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

In most of the general goal and performance measures, DOT has

information sources available to generate reliable data to support

the performance plan and to credibly report to Congress on the status of progress toward identified goals. However, a continuing deficiency for DOT generally has been a lack of accountability for the

Department’s financial activities and an impaired ability to manage programs, procurements, and activities in an effective and efficient manner. Since the early 1990s, when the OIG began auditing

the financial statements of certain agencies within DOT, the OIG

has been unable to determine whether the reported financial results are correct and has accordingly been unable to clear the statement with an unqualified opinion. The main deficiencies have been

the Department’s inability to reliably determine the quantities, the

locations, and the value of property, plant, equipment and inventory. Financial management weaknesses at the FAA contribute significantly to this problem. The Department lacks a cost accounting

system or an alternative system for reporting project and activity

costs. This deficiency generally makes it questionable whether DOT

can adequately link costs factors with performance measures in

any area of financial, procurement, or cost effectiveness.

The Department notes that it is pursuing cost accounting improvements, but the Subcommittee is concerned that any real improvement in this risk area is at least two years off. In addition,

the plan acknowledges identified concerns about limitations and expresses a willingness and intent to remedy shortcomings. However,

on an anecdotal basis, it is difficult to identify actions taken toward

those ends at this time.

The GAO does note that the 2000 performance plan made substantial improvements over the 1999 plan in the area of performance measures to address the data issue weaknesses. Whether

these measures remedy the current weaknesses is still an open

question.

III. HIGH RISK PROBLEMS

The Department continues to have substantial problems in two

major risk areas identified by GAO: (1) significant cost overruns,

schedule delays and performance shortfalls experienced by the air

traffic control modernization program; and (2) serious financial

management weaknesses at the FAA. These problems have been

documented and identified by the OIG, GAO, the Department and

Congress, and solutions have been suggested. Although some ac-
65

tions have been taken to address these recommendations, major

performance and management challenges persist.

These high risk areas are not new to the agencies or DOT. Solutions have been elusive, but the Subcommittee has no reason to

question the Department’s commitment to finding long term solutions for any of the GAO or IG identified problems.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

The Subcommittee staff has maintained an ongoing dialogue

with Department officials involved with the Results Act requirements and effort. The benefit of consultations is more relevant as

the performance plan elements migrate into budget formulation

and execution within DOT and the individual modal administrations. That evolution has yet to fully be embraced by the entire Department, even though Results Act integration responsibilities are

vested in the Office of Budget and Programs. Concurrent responsibility for budget formulation in the Office of the Secretary by itself

does not insure individual modal attention to performance goals or

guarantee that OMB will respect the programmatic requirements

of those goals as annual budgets are formulated and reviewed.

V. USEFULNESS

A second printing of the Department’s performance plan was required due to other agency interest in the Department’s innovative

plan approaches. The plan is clear, concise and well organized, and

it warrants favorable comparison to other recent publications by

transportation officials and opinion-makers.

The Department’s plan provides the necessary linkages between

performance goals and mission statements. However, the Department’s ability to implement performance management is limited by

the lack of a reliable cost accounting system and the management

problems in procurement and personnel management. Clearly,

DOT has made major strides with its performance plan, but that

plan has yet to penetrate the day-to-day operations of the Department, the modal administrations, or the procurement or personnel

processes.

The plans are very useful documents for determining how DOT

views the relative and absolute importance of its disparate goals.

In addition, it is a valuable gauge of whether the Departmental

leadership is serious about remedying identified deficiencies or inconsistencies in programs, activities, management, or direction.

The Department has been recognized as a leader in implementing the Results Act. GAO noted that the Department’s Fiscal

Year 2000 Performance Plan should be a useful tool for decision

makers. It provides a clear picture of intended performance across

DOT, a specific discussion of the strategies and resources that DOT

will use to achieve its goals, and general confidence that the Department’s performance information will be credible.

However, GAO also noted improvements that could be made to

the Department’s plan. Two of the recommended improvements relate to the critical management challenges identified by GAO and

DOT’s OIG. GAO suggested that consistently including goals and

specific measures for addressing these challenges and a full explanation of how the Department will address certain financial man-
66

agement challenges would improve the plan. Other GAO suggestions include: (1) including at least one annual performance goal for

each strategic outcome; (2) describing the nature of the coordination with other Federal agencies that have outcomes in common

with DOT and consistently discussing the Department’s contribution to the crosscutting programs; and (3) improvements in data

systems.
(67)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TREASURY AND GENERAL

GOVERNMENT

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Department of the Treasury has four key missions in fiscal

year 2000. Fulfillment of these missions requires actions by all

agencies and entities within the Department. However, the Department has also developed the following additional performance goals

and outcomes for each mission:

(1) Promote a prosperous and stable American and world economy (economic mission);

(2) Effectively manage the Government’s finances (financial mission);

(3) Protect our financial systems and our nation’s leaders, and

foster a safe and drug-free America (law enforcement mission); and

(4) Continue to build a strong institution (management mission).

As reflected in individual agency performance measures, measures are expressed both as outcomes (maintain or improve economic conditions in developing countries) and as processes or activities (Customs Service air travel compliance rate of 97.7 percent). Because of the wide-ranging jurisdiction, this appears to be

appropriate.

As a reflection of individual agency goals, most are reasonably

challenging, in some cases (such as Customs Service) the result of

the fine-tuning of measures. There is a combination of recurring

measures, discontinued measures, and new measures, which leads

to the conclusion that the performance plan is an evolving document.

Reliable measurement is dependent upon the individual agency

or bureau. The Department required each agency or bureau to rate

its performance data as having either reasonable accuracy or as

having questionable or unknown accuracy. Those isolated measures

which were identified as questionable or unknown are being evaluated to determine what needs to be done to improve the reliability

of the data.

Several agencies contribute to each mission statement. Because

the Department’s performance measures reflect individual agency

measures, it appears that great care has been taken by the Department to ensure balance.

There are some cross-cutting programs and activities similar to

those in other areas of the Federal Government, such as the mission to ‘‘foster a safe and drug-free America’’. While these relationships are not specifically addressed in the Department’s performance goals, in practice the agencies have formed close cooperative

working relationships with other entities, and these relationships

are reflected in their individual plans.
68

II. DATA RELIABILITY

Because the Department’s performance plan relies heavily on individual agency performance, the level of data reliability varies.

For example, statistical agencies such as the Bureau of Public Debt

have extremely reliable data, and the Bureau of Engraving and

Printing has the ability to track items such as manufacturing costs

for currency. On the other end of the spectrum, the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] is currently struggling with development of a

new information technology modernization project and must rely

upon outmoded technology for data collection. The Department’s

performance plan does not address any potential data limitations

or weaknesses.

III. HIGH RISK PROGRAMS

GAO highlighted four general challenges facing the Department

of the Treasury: (1) IRS management and performance issues, (2)

Customs Service financial management, (3) Financial Management

Service financial management issues, and (4) department-wide financial management weaknesses. The performance plans for individual agencies reflect efforts to address these issues. The Department’s performance plan contains a performance measure regarding the audit opinion on consolidated Treasury-wide financial statements.

The Department’s performance measures for the goal to ‘‘Continue to build a strong institution’’ contain the measure of an unqualified audit opinion in fiscal year 2000. Since there have been

qualified opinions since fiscal year 1998, reaching that indicator

will require a serious commitment on the part of Treasury.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

Individual agency performance plans were discussed with Subcommittee staff during the annual budget briefings. This is also the

case with the Departmental offices’ performance proposals. Over

the past couple of years, the various agencies have incorporated the

results of these consultations into subsequent submissions, making

the consultations effective from the Subcommittee’s point of view.

Until recently, there were two separate staffs responsible for

budget and Results Act implementation, with the budget staff overseeing the evaluation and linkage issues. The Department recently

merged these responsibilities under one deputy assistant secretary

who is responsible for both budget and planning. While having separate staffs did not actually impede effective consultation, the

merging of responsibilities will result in a more streamlined effort

and information flow.

V. USEFULNESS

The Department’s concise summary of performance measures delineates the agency measures which impact a particular mission

statement. If any additional information or explanation is required,

it can be found in the individual agency’s plan.

The performance measures are listed as supporting a particular

mission statement which shows a clear link to that mission. However, because this is a concise summary of individual agency meas-
69

ures, it does not include references to budget program activities or

day-to-day operations. Those linkages should be contained in the

individual agency plans.

A summary of the Department-wide missions is extremely useful

in seeing the big picture and as a measure of the role of the entities contained in the Departmental offices account. It is particularly useful because it shows the evolution of the measures for a

particular mission by the inclusion of continuing measures, discontinued measures, and newly added measures. The Department further required individual agency and bureau plans to be integrated

with the budget justification documents, which has been especially

useful.

CUSTOMS SERVICE

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Customs Service has reorganized its operations around the

following 3 core business processes which enable Customs to manage its programs and activities: (1) trade compliance (the commercial importation of merchandise), (2) passenger processing (the

processing of passengers entering and leaving the U.S.), and (3)

outbound processing (the commercial exportation of merchandise).

In addition to these core processes, the enforcement systems area,

when combined with the business processes, encompass all of Customs’ operational activities. From these processes, Customs has developed 39 performance measures.

Customs’ mission is to ensure that all goods and persons entering

and exiting the United States do so in compliance with all laws and

regulations. Customs, in conjunction with other Federal agencies,

represents one of the Nation’s principal means of border enforcement. Customs is establishing a framework for seeking improvements in organizational performance by focusing on improving

service to its compliant customers while enhancing effective enforcement against willful violators.

Customs’ goals and measures are reflected in terms of general

policy statements such as ‘‘maximizing trade compliance’’, whereby

the agency tries to measure the compliance level. The goals are not

always inherently quantifiable. The majority of the goals and measures are expressed in terms of processes and activities and not as

outcomes.

Customs has found, through the evaluation of its fiscal year 1998

performance plan, that many of its commercial targets were overly

aggressive and resulted in Customs achieving only 11 of its 28 performance goals. Customs has achieved high levels of compliance in

its air and land passenger processes and in revenue collection compliance. To improve trade compliance, Customs continues to pursue

modernization efforts and will implement a formal set of trade surveys to assess customer perceptions and attitudes, while implementing more aggressive enforcement measures when necessary.

Throughout this process, Customs has realized that some of its

original measures were not sufficient to achieve the goals set forth.

Therefore, the agency has worked to modify or eliminate the ineffective measures through a formal evaluation process. In addition,

Customs is implementing new means by which to receive critical
70

performance information, particularly relating to the impressions of

those that interact and are the ‘‘customers’’ of the Customs Service.

The largest difficulty Customs faces in terms of measuring performance is that Customs’ mission of compliance and drug interdiction does not have defined scope upon which success or failure can

be statistically based. For example, Customs can state how many

pounds of drugs it has interdicted in any given year, but it cannot

estimate the amount of drugs that are not interdicted or detected

at the border. The biggest challenge for Customs is to translate an

undefinable environment into effective, measurable goals and performance measures.

Of those which are quantifiable, Customs’ performance measures

have undergone major changes during the last few fiscal years. The

agency recognizes that there is still much work to be done, as is

evident in the development of several baseline measures and the

discontinuation of other measures. The 1998 fiscal year for Customs was a continuous process of improving measures, evaluating

how data was captured and validated, and how to more accurately

capture the outcome and impact of mission related information.

One example is that Customs is working to develop a new set of

narcotic and money laundering outcome measures, which, when

viewed in conjunction with the traditional outputs, paint a better

portrait of the organization’s impact.

Customs will continue the process of identifying and improving

measures and better defining what should be measured within the

organization. The real challenge for Customs is to determine if it

is measuring what it should be measuring, to develop new measures or refine existing measures, to ensure data integrity of the

new measures, and ultimately to use the data to assist in making

sound resource decisions.

The Customs Service is in a unique position because its role at

the border is shared with the Immigration and Naturalization

Service [INS], and the inspectors for both agencies work side by

side. Currently, the Customs Service and INS are carrying out the

Border Coordination Initiative, a long-term effort to improve cooperation and performance of INS and Customs resources. Customs

contemplates instituting another intensive narcotics enforcement

effort. It will further refine the operations of its field intelligence

teams for both agencies. The Border Coordination Initiative is specifically mentioned in Customs’ performance plan.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

Customs is developing tools to ensure performance measurement

data integrity. For most of the data elements used in measuring

performance, Customs has designated a data owner for that element. The owner of the data element is responsible for ensuring

the quality and validity of the data and for assigning a ‘‘quality

rating’’ for its respective element.

In general, Customs verifies and validates its data using an

array of methods. These include management inspections, headquarters and field reviews, automated edits, program reviews,

other agency validation, private sector feedback, and IG and GAO

audits. An overriding concern continues to be the ability of the
71

agency to establish mechanisms which can effectively and reliably

collect the data being sought.

There is an inherent weakness with the data because Customs

operates in an environment that cannot always be quantified. The

primary example is that it is impossible to estimate and measure

the amount of drugs that cross the border undetected. Customs acknowledges this weakness and continues to work with other agencies in a Federal effort to work toward better identification of the

size of the drug problem.

In aspects where Customs can quantify the data, Customs is improving data collection by developing new baselines and using technology to assist the data collection and improve the validity of the

data collected.

III. HIGH RISK PROGRAMS

The asset forfeiture program, administered by Customs and the

Justice Department, was on GAO’s high-risk list since the inception

of the list in 1990. Since the publication of the list in early 1999,

Customs has been removed from the GAO high-risk list. The Department of Treasury, however, does remain on the list for seized

asset management. There were no specific goals or measures included in the fiscal year 2000 performance plan for this issue.

There are, however, action items in the Commissioner’s Action

Plan relating to this problem.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

During the first year of reporting, fiscal year 1998, the Customs

Service provided extensive briefings to get input and feedback from

the Subcommittee. In addition, during this process Customs shared

the means by which it was building its plans and how it wanted

to proceed. As the plans have become more refined over time, the

Customs Service has consulted with the Subcommittee on its performance plans concurrently with the Subcommittee’s review of

Customs’ budget.

As a result of the consultations, the Customs Service and the Department of the Treasury as a whole have completely integrated

their performance plans into their budget submission. Customs has

taken each budget initiative and presented it in terms of its performance plan, which provides the Subcommittee the ability to validate the budget requests against the performance measures, and

vice versa.

The budget document is the vehicle for the performance measures. The agency’s performance plan is contained within the agency’s budget submission, but the work is done by a separate planning staff that is closely linked with the budget office.

V. USEFULNESS

Customs’ performance plan is very clear and concise. It provides

the Subcommittee with sufficient detail without providing too much

information.

There are definitive links between the plan’s goals and the mission. In fact, the primary component of the plan is the section titled

‘‘Relationship between the strategic plan and the annual perform-
72

ance plan,’’ whereby each strategic goal and objective are laid out

against the performance goal to which they are linked. In addition,

the plan includes a section which lists those measures currently

under administrative review because they are being either considered or validated. Finally, the most informative section of the plan

is the ‘‘Definitions of Performance Measures’’ section which sets out

each budget activity, defines all of the 39 performance measures,

the accuracy and means by which the measure will be verified, and

any current data available.

The performance plan enables the Subcommittee to evaluate the

importance of the budget requests by how well they coincide with

the performance plan. The plan has been a useful tool because, as

a result of the Subcommittee’s oversight, the agency has begun to

ask itself the same questions of relevancy and relation to mission

with respect to initiatives of interest to the Subcommittee. As a result, the agency and the Subcommittee are streamlining the requests put forth and validating their merit based on the agency’s

ability to stress the initiative’s importance in relation to the agency’s mission. Those initiatives that cannot be sufficiently justified

are eliminated, and those that are meritorious can be promoted

throughout the appropriations cycle.

One critical piece that is missing from the plan is a section on

those programs which were eliminated because a duplication of effort was found as a result of implementing the performance plan.

Also, the Subcommittee would find it very useful to have information about those initiatives which were eliminated or phased out as

a result of the implementation of the performance plan, i.e., an initiative that was found to underperform because the plan was used.

INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Internal Revenue Service [IRS] has been undergoing a massive restructuring effort in recent years. This has resulted in the

creation of a new mission statement, goals, and guiding principles.

The mission of the new IRS is to ‘‘provide America’s taxpayers with

top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax

responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all.’’ To implement this mission, IRS has developed three

goals: (1) service to each taxpayer, (2) service to all taxpayers, and

(3) productivity through a quality work environment.

Each of the four major components of the IRS has its own set of

performance plans, some carried forward from fiscal year 1996.

However, the vast majority of the new measurements for fiscal

year 2000 are still under development, and outcomes for specific

measures have not been articulated.

There has been criticism in the past of an apparent lack of balance between customer service and tax law enforcement. The IRS

believes it has now struck a balance by emphasizing three major

areas: (1) customer satisfaction, (2) employee satisfaction, and (3)

business results. Whether this is actually the case remains to be

seen.

The vast majority of the measurements contained in the IRS performance plans are measured by quality and quantity. For exam-
73

ple, the Processing, Assistance, and Management component is focused heavily on the customer service aspects of the IRS and includes such measurements as refund timeliness (percentage of refunds issued in less than 21 days) and accuracy rates for taxpayer

inquiries.

Most of the existing and continuing measures anticipate a steady

but gradual improvement, and some expect the IRS to maintain existing performance. For example, availability of data to front-line

employees 99 percent of the time has been the goal since fiscal year

1996 and will continue to be so in fiscal year 2000. Outcomes expected from the new measurements will be based upon fiscal year

1999 performance and have not yet been determined. However, the

Subcommittee expects the IRS to continue to strive for improvement in each and every category.

Because the operations of the IRS are based upon numbers—taxpayers, refunds, examinations, collections—most of the objectives

can be reliably measured, subject to the availability of necessary

technology. However, the most important goals—customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction—are much harder to measure. Unfortunately, for purposes of this review, those performance measures are among the many still to be determined.

The IRS must continue to balance taxpayer satisfaction with its

collection responsibilities. Unfortunately, there are many times

when taxpayers are not satisfied when the IRS informs them that

they owe additional taxes under existing tax laws. As a result of

Congressional oversight during the recent past, emphasis seems to

have shifted to customer satisfaction, which has resulted in a reduction in enforcement collections. The IRS believes its fiscal year

2000 performance plan strikes an appropriate balance.

The IRS is solely responsible for the enforcement of internal revenue laws and statutes, and for the collection of income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes, as well as excise, estate, and

gift taxes. The other entity with tax-collection responsibility is the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which collects taxes on

alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. Because their responsibilities are clearly delineated in statute, there are no cross-cutting programs or activities.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

The IRS has been relying upon older information systems for

tracking both revenue and performance measurements. This fulfills

the agency’s requirement that all measures must have reasonable

accuracy. However, it should be noted that after a somewhat shaky

start, the IRS has taken positive steps to ensure that the ongoing

information technology modernization project continues to move

forward at a deliberative, albeit slow, pace. In order to ensure that

funds are spent wisely, which has not been the case in the past,

Congress has required that the IRS outline expenditures before

funding is released.

As a result of careful oversight by Congress, GAO, OMB, and the

IRS Management Board at the Treasury Department, the project

appears to be back on track. While there could be early positive results in some specific programs, the entire project will take at least
74

10 years to complete. The IRS will continue to use the existing legacy systems to track performance measurements.

III. HIGH RISK PROGRAMS

Unfortunately, GAO has identified seven issues which are described as ‘‘formidable challenges’’ facing the IRS which should be

addressed separately.

—Restructuring the IRS organization and business practices to

better balance its efforts between taxpayer assistance and enforcement.—As outlined by the summary of its plan, the IRS

has moved forward to redesign the business practices of the

agency into 4 operating divisions, each with responsibility for

a specific segment or segments of taxpayers. Once this transition is complete, the IRS believes that this redesign will help

it to meet all 3 major goals of the agency.

—Correcting management and technical weaknesses in its systems

modernization efforts.—As previously stated, the IRS is in the

process of implementing its information technology modernization efforts. A big step forward was the awarding of the

PRIME contract late last year to serve as the developer and integrator for this project. The lines of responsibility are being

defined but have not yet been completed.

—Resolving financial management and control weaknesses that

affect its ability to adequately manage its financial operations.—Because of the age of the existing information technology infrastructure, the only way to resolve these problems

is with an entirely new, modernized, replacement system.

While those efforts are underway, it is a long process.

—Addressing problems relating to its ability to collect Federal tax

receivables and other unpaid assessments.—The performance

indicators for the collection activity for the Tax Law Enforcement account are still under development, which shows that

the IRS is aware of the problems and working to develop the

necessary performance measures. Fulfilling many of the performance measures is dependent upon completion of information technology applications.

—Assessing the impact of various efforts IRS has under way to

reduce filing fraud.—Unfortunately, the fiscal year 2000 performance plan does not mention this problem. The IRS acknowledges that its plan does not address this issue directly,

but assures staff that it will do so in the future.

—Improving security controls over information systems to address

weaknesses that place taxpayer data at risk to both internal

and external treats.—Security is a continuing concern for the

IRS and has been part of the IRS performance plan since fiscal

year 1998. While there have been some improvements over

time, inclusion of this concern on the GAO high-risk list shows

that much more needs to be done. The explanation of the proposed performance plan for the Information Systems account

indicates that as Y2K efforts wind down, staff will be redirected to work on the management of the huge information

technology infrastructure contract. Security should be an integral part of that contract.
75

—Modifying information systems to properly function in the year

2000.—This has been the top priority for the IRS. While the

written performance plan does not include specific measures, it

is obvious that the IRS must ensure the continued operation

of the information systems into the next century. This is clearly articulated in the fiscal year 2000 proposed performance

plan explanation.

The IRS is taking each of the items seriously and has been working with GAO to address its concerns. The Subcommittee will carefully monitor IRS’s efforts and progress in rectifying these problems.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

The IRS is a huge agency with numerous serious problems. As

a result, the performance plan contains descriptions of several ongoing major efforts. The IRS has consistently kept the Subcommittee informed of its plans and progress. The Subcommittee

expects consultation efforts to continue as the IRS moves forward

with specific, incremental expenditure plans which must be approved before funds can be released.

Consultations with IRS management representatives have been

informative for the Subcommittee, and feedback useful for IRS

management.

The Results Act and budget staffs have been separate entities for

the development of existing performance and strategic plans. Each

was handled by a different group, which resulted in some disconnects between the strategic plan and performance plans. As

part of the ongoing IRS modernization plan, these entities have

been merged into a Strategic Planning and Budgeting group. This

merger should result in a closer coordination of strategy and performance and eliminate problems (such as no performance plan to

address the need to reduce filing fraud).

The split responsibilities resulted in large numbers of IRS staff

briefing appropriations staff. The new merged responsibility should

make subsequent consultation much easier and informative.

V. USEFULNESS

The IRS performance plan is well presented. It starts with the

overall mission statement, proceeds to the three major goals and

the 5 guiding principles, and then to the 5 levers of change. This

is followed by specific performance for the IRS as a whole, as well

as the 4 major appropriated accounts. Each is clearly stated and

presented in such a way that it does, in fact, inform rather than

overwhelm.

Although the measurable goals of some of the performance plan

expectations are still being developed, the actual performance

measures are articulated, which gives the Subcommittee a clear

understanding of how each performance measure contributes to one

of the 3 major goals.

The IRS performance plan is a useful tool for realizing the magnitude of the task ahead of the new IRS. It clearly shows the intended use of requested funding levels. The fiscal year 2001 performance plan, which is expected to have greater detailed indica-
76

tors for specific measures, will be even more useful in determining

whether this year’s funding decisions were appropriate.

The IRS has done a good job of presenting the formidable tasks

facing this evolving entity. The Subcommittee understands that not

all of the newly developed performance measures have defined indicators, especially considering that the fiscal year 1999 performance

will be the baseline for future performance indicators. It is therefore difficult to get a clear picture of the existing performance and

the steps needed to improve in those areas.

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The General Services Administration [GSA] has 4 strategic goals

that are directly linked to the agency objective to provide, as cost

effectively as possible, the space, supplies, and services Federal employees need to do their jobs. GSA provides these services through

the Public Building Service [PBS], the Federal Supply Service, the

Federal Technology Service, and the Office of Government-wide

Policy. GSA has the following 4 strategic goals which pervade all

of its functions: (1) to promote responsible asset management, (2)

to compete effectively for the Federal market, (3) to excel at customer service, and (4) to anticipate future workforce needs.

GSA’s goals and measures are evenly mixed among outcomes and

processes and activities, for the agency’s role is inherently activitybased. Agency management is focused on defining and adapting in

a rapidly changing environment. GSA is in the process of refocusing its activity-based measures and goals so they are more

outcome based. For example, the plan now includes goals and related targets for assessing the level of satisfaction among GSA’s

federal customers. GSA is evolving from an operations-based organization that performs services for Federal agencies to a procurement and contract management organization that provides goods

and services for its Federal customers.

The goals and measures set out in GSA’s performance plan are

reasonably challenging and realistic in that they include items such

as ‘‘Hold annual increases in per mile charges for interagency fleet

vehicles close to inflation.’’ However, there are a few goals which

are not as reasonable. For example, ‘‘Complete all construction

projects on time’’ is a laudable but unrealistic goal. GSA is reevaluating all of its goals and measures on a regular basis so they can

be modified when the goals are either unreasonably challenging or

unrealistic. This is evident in the amount of modification the strategic plan has undergone since 1998. GSA goals in the fiscal year

2000 plan are more quantifiable than previous years.

GSA’s purpose and functions are inherently measurable because

the agency’s work is process-oriented. For fiscal year 2000, 48 of

the 58 goals have measures, baselines, and targets which are quantifiable. For some of the goals and measures, GSA plans to benchmark itself against the private sector in areas such as travel and

leasing costs. These types of goals and measures should be especially useful in gauging GSA’s future performance.

GSA’s plan did not include any instances of unintended effects

that were avoided.
77

The 2000 plan shows improvement in its discussion of cross-cutting issues. In the 2000 plan, GSA mentions the cross-cutting nature of its activities. In addition, GSA has an office, the Office of

Government-wide Policy [OGP], which is singly responsible for

interagency coordination. GSA, through OGP, is authorized to provide for a Government-wide system for procurement and supply of

personal property and management services utilization of available

property disposal of surplus property and records management. By

this authority, GSA develops, facilitates and interprets Government-wide policies in these areas. GSA collaborates with the Federal community and others to develop policy and guidelines, to provide education and training, and to identify best practices in the

areas where GSA has or supports policymaking authority. OGP

provides guidance, information and performance measures to make

the Federal Government’s administrative processes more efficient

and effective.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

The 2000 plan discusses the importance of having the technological capacity to maintain good data, and the plan’s section on

PBS discusses the importance of reliable information and PBS’ implementation of a new system for tracking real property data. All

but 9 of the performance goals have subsections entitled

‘‘Verification/Validation.’’ These subsections generally identify the

source of the data that will be used as a measure, with some identifying actions to be used to identify data problems, such as audits

of financial records and systems.

However, the information on data reliability is too general and

does not list GSA’s planned actions to verify and validate the data

that will be used to monitor progress and gauge results. As with

many agencies, GSA is struggling to identify the most effective and

efficient means to collect this data and analyze how it compares

with its current data collection systems. In addition, GSA is still

refining what data to collect. In its plan, GSA does not address how

it will meet these shortfalls until it has a sufficient data collection

system in place; however, GSA does acknowledge the importance of

data reliability.

The plan acknowledges the weakness of data, which is important, but does not delve into how the agency plans to change its

approach in order to sufficiently verify and validate its data and

the limitations of the current data collection systems. There is no

specific mention of the actions or the need for a plan to fully address how the agency will overcome this weakness. In addition, the

agency does not currently have all the necessary systems in place

needed to accurately assess the data collected. However, GSA is

fortunate because it is a process-oriented agency which lends itself

naturally to data collection and systems.

III. HIGH RISK PROGRAMS

GSA is not on the GAO’s high-risk list.
78

IV. CONSULTATIONS

During the first year of reporting, fiscal year 1998, GSA provided

extensive briefings to get input and feedback from the Subcommittee. In addition, GSA shared during this process the means

by which it was building its plans and how it wanted to proceed.

As the plans have become more refined over time, GSA has consulted with the Subcommittee on its performance plans concurrently with the Subcommittee’s review of GSA’s budget.

As a result of the consultations, GSA has made the plan available for discussion simultaneous with the Subcommittee’s review

the agency’s budget. Unfortunately, the agency has not completely

integrated its performance plan into its budget submission; the documents are provided separately.

A separate person is responsible for developing the performance

plan. This person coordinates the planning staffs and the work

they do in the 4 services of GSA and reports directly to the head

of the agency budget office.

V. USEFULNESS

The plan is very clear and concise. It begins with an overview

and a clear, charted section on the performance measures. Most

importantly, in a detailed section on performance measures, it includes a breakout of strategy and verification/validation and their

relationship to each strategic goal and objective.

The plan does not always show a clear connection between the

performance goals and the specific funding and program activities

in the budget. Without such linkages, decision-makers will have

difficulty relating the performance goals in the plan to the program

activities in the budget. In addition, it will be difficult for GSA to

allocate its anticipated budgetary resources among its performance

goals. Less than half of the performance goals contain a direct,

identifiable link to the budget; and, beyond that, there are some

goals which are not linked to any performance goals at all. However, there are instances in which the direct connection of the

budget to a performance measure is made. For example, the goal

to reduce the amount of non-revenue producing space identified

$77,000,000 from the Basic Repair and Alterations program activity.

From the Subcommittee’s perspective, the linkage of the plan to

the budget is the most critical component in order for the plan to

be useful to budgetary decisions made throughout the fiscal year.

Such a plan would enable the agency and the Subcommittee to

streamline the requests put forth and validate their merit based on

the agency’s ability to stress the initiatives’ importance in relation

to the agency’s mission. Those initiatives that could not be sufficiently justified would be eliminated and those that are meritorious

could then be promoted throughout the appropriations cycle. That

is not to say that the current plan is not useful without this information; however, the information is much more difficult and time

consuming to garner without this linkage. In general, the plan enables the Subcommittee to ask relevant questions about performance that would not otherwise be a topic of oversight.
79

The plan would be more useful if every aspect of the budget were

linked to the plan and vice versa. In addition, it would be useful

to have a section on cost-savings resulting from the use and implementation of the plan. This section should not only include the

under-performance of some of the agency’s activities, but also the

elimination of duplicative efforts carried out both within GSA and

within the Federal Government as a whole.

OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Office of Personnel Management [OPM] is divided into 10

separate components: Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness, Employment Service, Retirement and Insurance Service,

Workforce Compensation and Performance Service, Investigations

Service, Office of Workforce Relations, Executive Resources, Administrative Services, Executive and Other Services, and Office of Inspector General.

OPM has developed 5 separate overarching Strategic Goals, with

objectives which span several agency divisions and functions. As

the Federal Government’s personnel office, those responsibilities

are wide-ranging, which results in many shared goals. To achieve

the Strategic Goals, each individual division has its own set of performance goals. For example, Employment Service has 24 goals,

and Retirement and Insurance Service has 16 goals. While each

performance goal is an important objective for the individual division, the total number of performance goals for the agency is voluminous.

There is a mixture of measures. For example, OPM relies upon

the annual Customer Satisfaction Survey of client agencies to determine whether they are meeting Goal I: ‘‘Provide policy direction

and leadership to recruit and retain the Federal workforce required

for the 21st Century.’’ On the other hand, Goal IV: ‘‘Deliver high

quality, cost-effective human resources services to Federal agencies, employees, annuitants and the public’’ is measured by accuracy of payments and response times.

The goals and measures are, on the whole, reasonably challenging. While the Strategic Goals state the obvious functions of

the agency, the performance goals articulate the steps the agency

plans to take, or continues to take, to reach that goal. In some instances, it appears that OPM has developed a performance goal to

simply continue to do what it has always done. At the other end

of the spectrum, the goal of implementing a long term care program for Federal employees is totally dependent upon enactment of

legislation.

OPM relies upon customer satisfaction surveys and employee

surveys to determine whether most performance goals are realized.

The reliability of that measurement depends upon the reliability of

the responses to the surveys and the actual response rates.

The individual program performance goals identified with each of

the 5 Strategic Goals appear to result in a balanced approach.

OPM is the Federal Government’s personnel office and has the

statutory responsibility and authority to ensure government-wide

adherence to civil service principles and laws. The performance
80

goals in these areas clearly outline ongoing and continuing outreach and oversight of Federal agencies. As outlined above, the objectives of each of the 5 Strategic Goals clearly show the responsibilities of each division of the agency in reaching that goal.

II. DATA RELIABILITY

OPM relies heavily upon the information received from various

surveys, the reliability of which is questionable. Additional information is provided through the use of outside audits of various accounts. The plan does not appear to recognize the potential inadequacies of survey results.

III. HIGH RISK PROGRAMS

The GAO High-Risk Update issued in January 1999 included a

section regarding basic financial accountability, which noted that

OPM’s retirement fund and life insurance fund each received unqualified audit opinions. This achievement was noted as a performance result in OPM’s fiscal year 2000 Plan. However, GAO also

noted that the revolving funds, health benefits account, and salaries and expenses account audits received disclaimers. While none

of these audit reports reached the level of inclusion on the GAO

high-risk list, unqualified audit opinions in these accounts in fiscal

year 2000 are important performance goals (Retirement and Insurance Service Goal 5).

OPM’s fiscal year 2000 Plan contains an update on efforts to resolve this problem, leading the Subcommittee to conclude that

there is indeed a serious commitment.

IV. CONSULTATIONS

OPM’s Strategic Plan was developed in fiscal year 1997 to span

fiscal years 1998 through 2002 as a result of formal and informal

discussions with both authorizing and appropriating committees of

Congress. It is updated annually. Various aspects of the plan are

discussed with the agency representatives during briefings on the

budget request.

Subcommittee staff has noted that requests for expanded information during budget briefings result in improvements in the subsequent Strategic Plan update.

OPM has established an integrated GPRA working group consisting of representatives of each function of the agency. At last

count, there were 24 staff on this permanent working group.

V. USEFULNESS

While overwhelming in its volume, the performance plan is set

up in a logical and informative manner. Each strategic goal is listed with references to individual division performance goals in subsequent pages.

The OPM plan clearly establishes the annual performance goals,

Strategic Plan mission goals, and budget program activities. However, day-to-day operations are much less apparent.

The Strategic Plan and performance goals are of great help in

understanding the totality of the responsibilities and functions of
81

the agency. Of particular usefulness is the notation of the resources

provided for each activity.

Huge responsibilities result in huge explanations. The combined

Strategic Plan/performance plan/budget justification document is

365 pages long. However, it is difficult to know how to reduce the

size of the document and still be responsive to the statutory requirements and GAO recommendations.
(82)

1 HUD has been designated, most recently in 1999, as a high risk area by GAO vulnerable

to waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement; the only agency ever designated as high risk on

an department-wide basis. In addition, at various times, GAO, the HUD Inspector General and

NAPA have identified substantial concerns with HUD’s ability to administer its programs.

SUBCOMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING

AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

I. PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

The Results Act is an important management tool for the Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], which continues

to face a number of critical management and program issues that

undermine the capacity of the agency to meet its many program responsibilities.1 In particular, HUD is the principal Federal agency

responsible for programs and activities designed to meet the Nation’s housing needs, promote community development and assist

in the economic development of States and communities. In carrying out these programs and activities, HUD administers: (1)

mortgage and loan insurance programs that assist families to become homeowners and facilitate the construction of affordable rental housing; (2) rental and homeownership subsidy programs, such

as the Section 8 and Public Housing programs, that provide rental

assistance for low-income families who otherwise could not afford

decent housing; (3) programs to combat housing discrimination and

which affirmatively further fair housing opportunities; (4) programs designed to ensure the availability of an adequate supply of

mortgage finance credit; and (5) programs that aid neighborhood

rehabilitation, community and economic development, and that preserve and revitalize distressed urban areas.

Because of HUD’s broad and far-reaching responsibilities, the Results Act is a very important tool for linking housing and community development programs with funding decisions to ensure a comprehensive and focused approach to these issues. To meet the requirements of the Results Act, HUD adopted a 5-year strategic

plan on September 30, 1997, which covered fiscal year 1998

through fiscal year 2003. Since that time, HUD has continued to

refine its strategic planning process through its business and operating plans and through its annual performance plans [APPs], with

the Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Performance Plan as its most recent

Results Act strategic planning document. And while the fiscal year

2000 APP reflects a growing sophistication by the Department in

implementing the Results Act, HUD has not made the necessary

connections between the strategic plan and the allocation of resources, as provided in HUD’s annual budget request. These connections are critical to ensure that HUD decisionmaking is based

on measurable goals and outputs.
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HUD also has been in an almost constant state of reinvention

over the last 6 years, most recently in July, 1997, when Secretary

Cuomo released the HUD 2020 Management Reform Plan which

announced a set of major initiatives, including changes designed to

reduce the number of HUD programs; reduce the number of staff;

reorganize HUD’s 81 field offices; modernize and integrate the financial, management, and data information systems; and restructure program and activity authority in a manner designed to integrate more fully HUD programs and activities.

As part of HUD’s reinvention process, HUD contracted with the

National Academy of Public Administration [NAPA] for an assessment of HUD’s implementation of the Results Act. In response,

NAPA issued a report entitled GPRA in HUD: Changes for the Better (July 1999). While the NAPA report credits HUD with using the

Results Act as a primary tool for management reform and decisionmaking, the report also raises significant concerns about HUD’s

failure to link output data with output targets in its APPs, including the fiscal year 2000 APP. In addition, the NAPA report advises

that HUD’s business and operating plans still focus on program

specific outputs and not in the multi-disciplinary cross-cutting outcome terms which are needed to strategically manage HUD. Also,

while the Department is developing a Resource Estimation Allocation Process [REAP] system to help measure HUD’s resource efforts per specific work requirements, there remain serious concerns

regarding the availability of accurate and timely performance

measurement data which meets sound data quality standards. As

a result, data reliability is an area of paramount concern to the

Congress. Finally, the NAPA report concludes that HUD now needs

to link its management activities more directly to outcomes included in its strategic and annual performance plans.

II. CONSULTATIONS

While HUD’s progress in implementing the Results Act is positive, it remains very difficult to assess the degree or the effectiveness of the Department in implementing the Results Act. In particular, the fiscal year 2000 APP fails to make HUD’s mission,

goals, and objectives adequately outcome-oriented in a meaningful

way and, more importantly, it fails to make the necessary connection between the APP and funding decisions, which for the Subcommittee is the primary criteria for the successful implementation

of the Results Act. This also underlies the Subcommittee’s concern

that the Department has not worked adequately with the Congress

on the implementation of the Results Act.

For example, HUD’s fiscal year 2000 Budget Justifications identified 3 performance indicators for the Housing Certificate Fund,

which is the primary appropriation account for the funding of the

Section 8 rental assistance programs. These 3 performance indicators set goals: (1) to increase the percentage of section 8 families

with children living in low-poverty census tracts; (2) to increase the

percentage of the head of households with children who move from

welfare to work while assisted by tenant-based section 8; and (3)

for the Section 8 Management Assessment program, to improve the

performance of the agencies that administer section 8 assistance.

While these issues are important as indicators, there are larger
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and more important issues which underlie this account that need

to be addressed. For example, there is significant evidence that

many low-income families with section 8 vouchers have a difficult

time in finding (or are unable to find) affordable and available

housing in many areas of the United States. This is a very significant issue that goes to the heart of the Section 8 program, one that

is as important or more important than the issues identified by

HUD in its performance indicators.

III. USEFULNESS

Finally, it is still too early to evaluate adequately the implementation and usefulness of the Results Act as both a budget tool and

as a measure and benchmark for the effectiveness of an agency in

fulfilling its mission. While there is a significant disconnect between HUD resource allocations and program benchmarks and

goals, it is only beginning on March 31, 2000 that agencies are to

prepare annual performance reports covering the preceding 3 fiscal

years, including performance measurement data. At that time

HUD is expected to describe its performance indicators in its performance plan and assess its performance with respect to these indicators.

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

The mission of the Department of Veterans Affairs [VA] to care

for and serve veterans is clear, and its performance plan explicitly

describes VA’s plans to fulfill that mission. VA offered consultations with the Subcommittee on its performance plan; however, its

usefulness to the Subcommittee has been limited, as the budget

justification continues to be the key agency document for the Subcommittee’s deliberations regarding VA programs. Because the

budget office is largely responsible for overseeing implementation

of the Results Act, there is a connection in the development of VA’s

budget with the attainment of performance measures.

VA’s goals and objectives are results-oriented; the plan explains

where the Department is coordinating with other agencies, particularly the Department of Defense, in running its programs. In addition, the plan describes how VA is working to coordinate better

within the Department, acting as ‘‘one VA’’ rather than 3 individual agencies as has been its tradition.

VA’s critical role as a health care provider and benefits deliverer

to veterans makes it quite difficult to withhold funding owing to

poor performance. In fact, poor performance at the VA often spurs

quite the opposite effect: more funding is often provided when performance lags because interest groups virtually always cite inadequate funding as the reason for performance problems, such as

poor quality of care or slow delivery of benefits. This makes it quite

difficult for the Subcommittee to use the budget as a tool to ensure

implementation of a performance-based system at the Department.

Implementation of the Results Act is well underway within the

Veterans Health Administration [VHA], which has undergone a

significant reorganization, including the implementation of numerous ‘‘management efficiencies’’ aimed at reducing redundancies and

improving the use of health care dollars. In addition, managers are
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being held to results-oriented performance measures with retention

and promotions at risk. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been

saved over the past few years while more veterans are being provided health care, and quality of care indicators have improved.

However, given the size of the system and its decentralization,

there is a wide variety in the degree of ‘‘success.’’ Moreover, there

remains much to be done to continue to improve the system, eliminate inefficiencies, and improve quality. Momentum may be lagging in eliminating remaining redundancies and in redirecting savings to health care.

With respect to the Veterans Benefits Administration [VBA], far

more needs to be done to develop a results-oriented system. VBA

has put together a new way of measuring its results—called ‘‘the

balanced scorecard’’—which moves toward a performance-based

system of measuring its activities. Yet its 59 regional offices are far

from meeting the goals the Department has set forth, and a culture

which has consisted of 59 largely autonomous regional offices has

been slow to adapt to change. Most of the goals it has set forth are

currently not being met within VBA.

While there is strong support for the Results Act at the top level

within the budget office, continued successful implementation of

GPRA is currently at-risk at the Department owing to the lack of

leadership within the Department and within VHA.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

The Environmental Protection Agency’s [EPA] progress in implementing the Results Act has been mixed. EPA has taken some notable steps in attempting to move toward a performance-based system, such as developing a new system to improve its working relationship with States, establishing a new Office of Information

aimed at improving the quality of EPA data, and initiating pilot

projects aimed at providing flexibility in exchange for accountability to regulated entities in meeting environmental requirements. However, much of EPA’s activities aimed at performancemanagement have been at the margins of EPA’s activities and have

not resulted in changes to core EPA activities. According to GAO,

participants in EPA’s ‘‘common sense’’ initiative—the centerpiece of

EPA’s regulatory ‘‘reinvention’’ initiatives—spent much of their

time on process-related issues.

EPA did have multiple consultations with the Subcommittee as

it developed its strategic plan and reoriented its budget structure,

with some useful changes made as a result of these consultations.

The agency also established an Office of Planning and Analysis,

with implementation of GPRA as its key function. This office reports directly to the Chief Financial Officer, ensuring a linkage between the budget process and implementation of the Results Act.

EPA’s mission is wide-ranging, and with its responsibility to implement 12 major environmental statutes, a simple performance

plan would be nearly impossible. Even so, EPA’s performance plan

is extremely cumbersome, containing far too many objectives and

sub-objectives. Moreover, a number of its 10 goals are questionable.

For example, EPA cites ‘‘a credible deterrent to pollution’’ as one

of its 10 goals. Yet most analysts agree that enforcement should be

a policy tool, not a goal in and of itself.
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In addition, it is not clear whether many of EPA’s performance

measures are appropriate, and whether these measures represent

a ‘‘stretch’’ or whether they would be met under ‘‘status quo’’ circumstances. For example, EPA has a goal of preventing harmful

pesticides exposure, and one of its measures is a 5 percent decrease

in incidences in pesticide poisonings. Why 5 percent? This is not explained or justified.

In addition, EPA’s performance measures are replete with process-oriented ‘‘bean counts’’, such as the number of permits to be

issued. Indeed, only about 12 percent of EPA’s performance measures are true results-oriented measures. Moving to true performance measures is difficult because, as EPA acknowledges in its annual plan, factors other than EPA activities—such as State and

local agency activities—often play a direct role in whether performance measures are met. In the limited instances where EPA uses

true performance measures as opposed to traditional bean counts,

it is not at all clear that EPA activities can be linked directly to

the performance measures it has set forth. Also, assessing the effectiveness of its activities has not been one of EPA’s strong points

as the agency lacks a program evaluation capability.

With respect to data reliability, as mentioned earlier EPA has

taken the first step of establishing a new Office of Information.

However, the quality of information continues to be a major management weakness identified by the Inspector General, and far

more needs to be done to ensure that the data EPA uses to measure its effectiveness are accurate and reliable. This will be a multiyear effort and will require significant action on the part of State

environmental agencies as well.

EPA’s budget process illustrates the difficulties EPA has had in

implementing the Results Act in a meaningful manner. On the one

hand, EPA has taken significant steps to link its budget with its

strategic plan. Beginning in fiscal year 1999, EPA restructured its

entire budget process consistent with its strategic plan, including

in the budget justification appropriation requests for each of the

myriad goals, objectives and sub-objectives. Yet in restructuring

the budget, key program information has been lost and must be obtained through a series of complicated budget crosscuts. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the budget document has declined because

appropriation decisions are made primarily on the basis of program

information rather than objectives and sub-objectives. Moreover, attributing agency program activity to sub-objectives is an inexact

and subjective process. EPA admitted that ‘‘the resources under

each goal do not and cannot reflect all resources that could be reasonably associated with achieving the goal.’’

And, the new budget process has not resulted in any significant

change in the allocation of EPA resources to ensure that dollars are

allocated to those activities yielding the largest results—the largest

reduction in risk to human health and the environment. The strategic plan does not address the need to prioritize activities according to risk, despite the fact that this has been an issue of chief concern to this Subcommittee.

Finally, one of the largest EPA programs, the Federal toxic waste

cleanup program known as Superfund, continues to be designated

by GAO as a high-risk program subject to fraud, waste and abuse.
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It has held this designation for a decade, despite EPA claims that

it has reformed the program. EPA’s performance plan does not directly address the key problems identified by GAO, such as the

need to control Superfund contractor cleanup costs.

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] has made

some important strides in moving toward a performance-based system as envisioned by the Results Act, including ‘‘reengineering’’ its

public assistance program to streamline the process by which disaster relief funds are allocated for municipal infrastructure

projects, and implementing a new teleregistration process for providing benefits to disaster victims. These initiatives are resulting

in lower administrative costs and improved customer satisfaction.

However, FEMA has not linked its budget to its strategic plan,

and it is not clear how the development of FEMA’s budget would

be impacted if performance measures are not met. The Agency’s

budget staff is not involved in preparation of the annual plan or

oversight of the Results Act. Moreover, there continue to be significant concerns with the management and allocation of FEMA’s disaster relief fund, such as whether hazard mitigation grant funds

are being spent on the most cost-effective projects.

FEMA’s goals and measures are results-oriented and seem to be

reasonably challenging. FEMA is working to improve its information systems, an area of concern identified by the IG. FEMA is expanding the use of information systems to capture performance information to help manage its programs. While FEMA does identify

activities that cut across other Federal agencies, it does not address

the need to eliminate duplication in such areas as anti-terrorism

and hazard mitigation.

The plan does address major management challenges, and

FEMA’s efforts to implement improvements in such areas as developing disaster declaration criteria are commendable. However,

while FEMA has proposed using emergency management performance grants as the means of providing pre-disaster assistance to

States—a more flexible and streamlined means of providing this

assistance than the traditional multi-grant process—it is not clear

that FEMA is doing enough to hold States accountable in the use

of these funds, e.g., improving their preparedness for disaster

events. Also, while FEMA acknowledges that disaster cost containment is a key concern and has taken some steps to reduce costs,

it has not done enough in this area. The fundamental mission of

FEMA’s disaster relief program as envisioned by the Stafford Disaster Relief Act is to supplement, and not supplant, State and local

capability. The strategic plan and annual plan do not adequately

affirm this or address the need to limit FEMA’s role to a supplemental one.

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[NASA]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] is

making good progress in implementing the Results Act. Beginning

in October 1996, NASA issued a Strategic Management Handbook
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2The NASA IG indicates that the Senior Management Council did not assess NASA progress

in achieving the established goals and targets until August 1999. The IG advises that the Council assessments need to occur earlier and that NASA needs to establish formal procedures and

schedules to ensure that assessments are accomplished in a timely manner.

which documented management policies, procedures, guidelines

and the responsibility for strategic management. The first Strategic

Plan was issued in September 1997 and covered fiscal year 1998

through fiscal year 2002. Subsequently, NASA issued Annual Performance Plans [APP] for both fiscal year 1999 and 2000. In each

case NASA has made progress in effectively implementing the Results Act.

Nevertheless, there is still progress to be made, and in many

ways, it is premature to evaluate adequately the implementation

and usefulness of the Results Act as both a budget tool and as a

benchmark to measure the effectiveness of NASA in meeting its

mission. A number of these concerns will be addressed on March

31, 2000, when agencies are required to submit annual performance reports covering the preceding 3 fiscal years, including performance measurement data.

In addition, the Subcommittee believes a recent GAO report on

NASA’s Fiscal Year 1999 APP as well as an audit by NASA’s Inspector General on NASA’s implementation of the Results Act remain useful and accurate assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of NASA’s implementation of the Results Act. In brief,

NASA’s APP reflect NASA’s mission statement and goals as stated

in its strategic plan, and link strategic goals with NASA’s performance plans’ goals and performance targets; incorporate performance

measures that are generally objective, able to be quantified, and

useful for assessing progress in meeting the APP performance objectives; and provide for annual external reviews by the Advisory

Council and semiannual internal reviews by the Senior Management Council to validate NASA’s progress in meeting its goals and

objectives.2

On the other hand, NASA’s annual performance plans must better connect performance goals and measures to the program activities in NASA’s budget; more fully explain NASA’s procedures for

verifying and validating the data used to assess performance to ensure that the data is accurate, complete and credible; and provide

more insight into the development of NASA’s goals and performance measures. NASA also needs to work more closely with the

Congress in implementing the Results Act. In particular, the Senate Committee on Appropriations needs to be consulted on the implementation of the Results Act since the primary criteria for its

successful implementation is the connection between NASA’s strategic plan and the APP to resource allocation, as provided in

NASA’s annual budget request.

Moreover, NASA is converting its budget to full cost accounting

by fiscal year 2001. This revised accounting structure should provide more clarity to the budget process and resource allocation.

However, the principles of full cost accounting must be tied into the

Results Act procedures.

Finally, NASA has traditionally used performance-based decisionmaking in the development of NASA’s many highly technical

and specific deliverables (from satellites to space shuttles to new
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propulsion systems). The more difficult issue is how NASA can use

the Results Act to match the often highly uncertain research and

development goals with a process that is intended to link funds expended today with an outcome that may not occur for a decade or

more.

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

The National Science Foundation [NSF] has made significant

progress in implementing the Results Act, in spite of difficult challenges in developing performance outcomes that are measurable

due to the nature of the agency’s mission of advancing basic scientific research and promoting education in science and math. The

Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Performance Plan lists five outcome goals,

which are generally consistent with the mission of the agency: (1)

discoveries at and across the frontier of science and engineering; (2)

connections between discoveries and their use in service to society;

(3) a diverse, globally-oriented workforce of scientists and engineers; (4) improved achievement in mathematics and science skills

needed by all Americans; and (5) relevant, timely information on

the national and international science and engineering enterprise.

Despite the challenge in developing performance measurements,

NSF has made significant progress in meeting the goals of the Results Act by using more qualitative performance goals instead of

quantitative performance targets. Specifically, NSF, as permitted

by the GPRA statute, established performance goals in the form of

statements that describe ‘‘successful’’ and ‘‘minimally effective’’ performance. The use of this alternative format allows for expert judgment, i.e., expert peer review, to consider both quantitative and

qualitative information on performance. The scientific community

strongly believes in this approach since many believe that outcomes

of basic research cannot be captured by quantitative measures

alone.

Reviews by the Congressional Research Service and GAO have

generally praised the Foundation’s efforts in developing its performance plan, but both have pointed out the need for further improvement in order for the plan to be useful to policy-makers. Two

of the major deficiencies in NSF’s plan are: (1) NSF’s failure to provide clear information on the linkages between its budget and its

performance goals, and (2) limited confidence that the information

it provides will be credible. Resolving the first deficiency will be of

special interest to the Subcommittee since it is important to understand the rationale for how NSF’s resources contribute to accomplishing the expected level of performance.
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1The Fiscal Year 2000 Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations Act provided $20,000,000. Title III of H. Rept. 106–354. 2The Fiscal Year 2000 Housing and Urban Affairs, Veterans, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act provided $30,000,000. H. Rept. 106–379. 3The Fiscal Year 2000 Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Department, and Related

Agencies Appropriations Act provided $11,376,695,000 for housing activities. 4 H. Rept. 106–379.

IV. PROGRAM DUPLICATION AND OVERLAP

In order to ensure that Federal taxpayers get the most ‘‘bang for

their buck,’’ not only must Congress and the Administration ensure

that programs achieve their desired goals through measurable performance objectives, but they must eliminate duplication of effort.

Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, many Federal programs

perform essentially the same function.

For example, the Rural Development Administration, through

the Rural Community Advancement Program 1, operates a water

and sewer improvement program in isolated Native villages in

Alaska and remote colonias along the United States-Mexico border.

The Environmental Protection Agency runs nearly identical programs through its State and Tribal Assistance Grants Program.2

Both agencies require a 25 percent local match and have similar

program requirements.

The good news is that double the resources have been dedicated

to provide running water and flush toilets for a forgotten segment

of Americans. The bad news is that two separate agencies are running the same program with two sets of rules, two sets of applications required, two sets of personnel processing paperwork, and two

sets of reporting requirements. The Indian Health Service also provides resources for rural water and sewer programs, as does the

Army Corps of Engineers.

Fortunately, at least in Alaska, the Federal agencies have

worked together with the State of Alaska to form a Village Safe

Water Program which administers all the funds once they are

transferred to Alaska. One priority list is established, and projects

are funded off that list regardless of which agency provides the

funds. Unfortunately, two agencies still must process the paperwork to make it work, while a third, the Indian Health Service,

helps implement the program.

An even more glaring example arises with respect to housing

programs. The Department of Housing and Urban Development

[HUD] is the lead agency responsible for providing affordable housing in the nation.3 Yet, over the years a number of other agencies

have assumed segments of that mission. For example, the Veterans

Department operates the Veterans Housing Benefit Program, an

indirect and guaranteed loan program, a Native American Veterans

Housing Loan Program, and a Guaranteed Transitional Housing

Loan Program for veterans 4 of the Armed Forces that mirror HUD

programs. In addition, the Rural Development Administration, an
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5The total subsidy required to support the program in fiscal year 2000 is $181,560,000. Conference Report on the Fiscal Year 2000 Agriculture and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,

H. Rept. 106–354. 6 United States General Accounting Office Report to Congressional Committees, February

1999. ‘‘Homelessness: Coordination and Evaluation of Program are Essential’’, page 2. 7 Id.

8The Economic Development Administration was funded at $361,879,000 in the Fiscal Year

2000 Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. H.

Rept. 106–398. 9The Economic Development Initiative was funded at $275,000,000 in the Fiscal Year 2000

Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

H. Rept. 106–379. 10The Rural Business-Cooperative Service was funded at $16,615,000 which supports a loan

program of $38,256,000 for fiscal year 2000. H.Rept. 106–354. 11The Fiscal Year 2000 Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, and Related

Agencies Appropriations Act provided $55,000,000 for urban empowerment zones and

$15,000,000 for rural empowerment zones which was transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture. 12The Fiscal Year 2000 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations

Act provided $45,245,000 for empowerment zones, enterprise communities, and Rural Economic

Area Partnership Zones.

arm of the Department of Agriculture, operates the Rural Housing

Service, a $4,600,000,000 housing loan program.5 The Department

of Defense has a separate military housing program.

With respect to homeless programs alone, there are 50 separate

programs run by 8 different Federal agencies according to GAO.6

A February 1999 GAO Report noted that:

‘‘in some cases, programs operated by more than one

agency offer the same type of service. For example, 23 programs operated by four agencies offer housing, such as

emergency shelter, transitional housing, and other housing

assistance. Twenty-six programs administered by six agencies offer food and nutrition services, including food

stamps, school lunch subsidies, and supplements for food

banks.’’ 7

Some programs have separate eligibility criteria, separate intake

workers, separate personnel to process applications, and separate

rules and regulations. So instead of providing services to the homeless, the Federal Government spends a substantial portion of its resources providing resources for paper pushing.

Economic development offers yet another example. The Commerce Department’s Economic Administration 8 is very similar to

HUD’s Economic Development Initiative.9 A similar program, the

Rural Business-Cooperative Service, only with a rural flavor, can

be found within the Rural Development Administration.10 Both the

Department of Housing and Urban Affairs 11 and the Department

of Agriculture 12 offer enterprise zone programs, and the Small

Business Administration funds Hub Zones.

Why do these duplications occur? Because both Congress and the

Administration want to do what is right. When the 1996 Farm Bill

came to the Senate floor, the Alaska Congressional Delegation

amended it to ensure that rural Alaska received the same treatment as the colonias. When the Environmental Protection Agency

was reauthorized along with its urban water and sewer program,

the border States amended the bill to make sure that their unique

needs received the same treatment as urban locales.

Likewise, with respect to homeless programs, the proliferation of

programs came out of a strong desire by both branches of Government to help homeless people. The Administration looks for every
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13Pub. L. 105–220, the Workforce Investment Partnership Act of 1998. 14The Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program was funded at $20,700,000 in the Fiscal

Year 2000 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. H. Rept.

105–354. 15The Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction Program was funded

at $26,500,000 in the Fiscal Year 2000 Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related

Agencies Appropriations Act. H.Rept. 106–398. 16The Veterans Administration budget included $750,000 to develop a telemedicine network

for veterans. H. Rept. 106–379. 17The Indian Health Service budget included $5,500,000 to develop a telemedicine network

for Indians. H. Rept. 106–406. 18The Department of Defense budget included $3,800,000 to develop a telemedicine network

for members of the Armed Services. H. Rept. 106–244.

opportunity, both in the Federal budget process and as agency programs are reauthorized, to ensure that a particular issue like

homelessness receives attention. Members of Congress, depending

on their committee assignments, look for similar opportunities. A

member of the Appropriations Committee might approach homelessness one way while a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee may focus on homelessness among veterans, while the Indian Affairs Committee may focus on Native housing programs. All

have the best of intentions.

This phenomenon reached its zenith with respect to job training

programs. Before the recent and massive reorganization, there

were over 200 separate job training programs in nearly every agency of the Government.13 All, no doubt, were good ideas at the time

and when considered in isolation. But in the aggregate, the system

made no sense at all.

The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee undertook a major overhaul of Federal job training programs, with the

support of and in cooperation with the Administration, and consolidated them into one stop job services. Instead of visiting dozens of

job training programs or even bouncing from program to program,

a person seeking training now makes only one visit to access all

Federal job training programs. Resources can now be focused on

training instead of bureaucracy.

This model should be used in other areas where collective efforts

to do right have gone very wrong. For example, the internet and

other high technology solutions have become the hot new trend in

providing both health and educational services. A virtual bidding

war has ensued to see which branch can do more in these rapidly

emerging fields.

Dozens of Federal agencies now provide such services including

the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program in the Department of Agriculture 14, the Public Telecommunications and Facilities Program within the Department of Commerce 15, the Coast

Guard health program within the Department of Transportation,

the Veterans Department,16 the Indian Health Service,17 the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense 18, and even independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission’s schools and libraries program.

There is tremendous duplication of effort, both within departments and even within single agencies. There are 174 education

programs just within the Department of Education. The President

has proposed eliminating 18 of those programs when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is reauthorized, but adding 19

more. One of those 174 education programs awarded grants to
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nearly a dozen separate graduate equivalent degree [GED] programs to enable high school drop-outs to earn their high school diplomas through the internet. If the programs are universally available on the internet, how many GED programs do we need?

In Alaska, this issue is being addressed in two ways. Senator Ted

Stevens, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, advised his constituents that Congress would provide no money for

telehealth in Alaska unless all the interested parties worked together to develop one statewide initiative. Prior to that, telemedicine projects were developing across the State with no rhyme nor

reason. For example, in the remote community of Dutch Harbor,

two separate and competing telehealth clinics were built in a town

of 1,000 people while other communities had no clinic at all.

With a $100,000 planning grant, the State Commissioner of

Health and Social Services, Karen Perdue, worked with all affected

Federal, State, and local agencies and private caregivers to develop

a comprehensive, unified statewide telemedicine network. It is

being funded through the 4 Federal agencies whose clients will

benefit from Coast Guardsmen to veterans to Indians to servicemen

and women. But one agency is administering the program.

A similar effort is currently underway in Alaska to develop one

statewide teleeducation network which will include local school districts, all colleges and universities in the State, the National

Guard, the Department of Defense, and various segments such as

hospitals which require a training component to make their programs function.

To maximize economies of scale, this effort must become a national initiative. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee plans to require a comprehensive approach in its

reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Chairman Jim Jeffords should be commended for his foresight in

developing this legislation, which will make the full range of services available to every American and will do so in a much more cost

effective way.

Alaska has worked to save money by consolidating other services.

For example, Indian Health Service clinics in rural Alaska provide

medical care to veterans and are reimbursed by the VA, assist poor

people and are reimbursed by Medicaid, provide health care to the

elderly and are reimbursed by Medicare. Similarly, the Department

of Defense, working in conjunction with the Veterans Department,

reserved 10 beds in its new regional medical hospital for Alaska’s

veterans who had no hospital to make specialty medical care affordable.

Another effort underway in the State’s capital city of Fairbanks

would consolidate Federal, State, and social service delivery mechanisms. One-stop shopping centers would be established for parents

and their children. One case worker would provide access to whatever services were needed from child care assistance to Head Start

to immunizations to nutrition counselling. One common application

form would be used to avoid multiple agencies processing multiple

applications.

To assist in this effort to consolidate social services, the Senate

Appropriations Committee included a provision in the Fiscal Year
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19Section 515 provides: ‘‘The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall prepare

an inventory of existing Federal grant programs including formula funds, competitive grant

funds, block grant funds, and direct payments. The inventory shall include the name of the program, a copy of the relevant statutory and regulatory guidelines, the funding level in fiscal year

1999, a list of eligibility criteria both statutory and regulatory, and a copy of the application

form. The Director shall submit an inventory no later than 6 months after enactment to the

Committee on Appropriations and relevant authorizing committees.’’

2000 Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act 19 directing OMB to submit an inventory of grant programs to the Committee along with relevant eligibility guidelines. That information

will assist in the effort to consolidate programs, or at a minimum,

consolidate their administration. The Women, Infants, and Children’s Program is a good model. Case workers not only provide nutrition services and counseling, but access to immunizations, lead

screening, and other services for babies and young children.

More needs to be done. The new President will have a tremendous opportunity to make recommendations to Congress to eliminate duplication, consolidate programs, and form interagency collaborative partnerships to streamline administration and maximize

coordination. With the support of Congress, services could be improved, duplication eliminated or at least reduced, and more Federal resources could be devoted to providing services. The taxpayers

deserve no less.
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V. OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSION

Observations

Successful implementation of the Results Act depends upon a

transformation in the methods used by the Executive and Legislative branches to formulate and evaluate budget requests for Federal agencies. Because implementation is an evolutionary process,

this report assesses only the current cycle in which performance

plans were delivered to Congress in conjunction with the President’s fiscal year 2000 budget. As this report illustrates, the quality

and usefulness of the performance plan is directly impacted by the

following factors: (1) the quality of the agency’s goals and measures; (2) an agency’s vulnerability to external factors in achieving

its goals; (3) the accuracy of agency data; (4) agency responsiveness

to GAO and Congressional concerns and/or recommendations, such

as GAO high risk areas; (5) the quality and frequency of the consultation process between the agency and Congressional staff; and

(6) the commitment of agency staff to comply with the Results Act’s

requirements. A brief discussion of these factors follows.

The quality of the agencies’ goals and objectives varies both

among agencies and within a single agency. For example, the Department of Justice performance plan for fiscal year 2000 outlines

3 strategic themes. The Subcommittee evaluation determined that

some aspects of the plan are stronger than others. An uneven performance plan results in uneven agency performance. Across agencies, the Department of Agriculture generally presented clear, realistic goals that were capable of measurement. On the other hand,

the goals for USAID were evaluated as ‘‘too ambiguous to lend

themselves to credible evaluations of success or measurement of

benchmarks toward that success.’’ Similarly, the performance indicators for the International Trade Commission did not include

quality control mechanisms. The usefulness of an agency performance plan to the Appropriations Committee is commensurate with

its clarity, reliability and goal achievability. The Appropriations

Committee anticipates that the performance plans will improve

with subsequent budget submissions as the agencies benefit from

performance plan evaluations by Congress, GAO, other entities,

and the agency itself.

A performance plan is only as reliable as the agency’s information sources and data reliability. Likewise, a performance plan is

useful to the Appropriations Committee only if it is based on reliable data. In most performance plans, data reliability was described as a major agency concern. For example, with respect to

DOD data, the Defense Subcommittee expressed concern for ‘‘the

credibility of data from DOD’s financial, accounting, and other information systems.’’ The Interior Subcommittee noted that DOI and

several bureaus within its purview ‘‘are attempting in several instances to upgrade or modify information systems in order to better
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support their performance plans.’’ Improved data reliability requires the allocation of adequate resources in the agency budget

process and careful consideration of the requested funds during the

appropriations process.

Most Federal departments and agencies are at a disadvantage in

achieving their stated goals because they are highly vulnerable to

outside influences. For example, the Department of State faces a

challenge in developing dependable performance measures because

American foreign policy is subject to the actions of other nations,

transnational organizations and international business.

Imperative to the success of the Results Act is the consultation

process between Federal agencies and Congressional staff. There is

no substitute for dialogue to ensure that information is both shared

and explained to the satisfaction of the Committee prior to the passage of the appropriations bill. Since time is a precious commodity

for both agency and Congressional staff, consultation should occur

simultaneous with the agency’s presentation of its budget request.

This coordinated effort will encourage the integration of the Results Act with the budget process and facilitate an understanding

of the link between performance plans and budget requests.

The Results Act is a tool for Federal agencies, Congress and

other entities that use Results Act information in making funding

or other agency-related decisions. Thus, the agency’s responsiveness to Congressional, GAO or other entity concerns is critical to

the success of the Results Act. The high risk areas GAO has identified in many Federal agencies are examples of the types of problems the Results Act was designed to prevent or eliminate. Within

the Department of the Interior, GAO has highlighted several management problems that cost the Federal Government and American

taxpayers over $3,800,000,000. An agency’s performance plan

should provide goals and measures for remedying any verifiable

high risk area.

An obvious key to the success of the Results Act is compliance

with the Act’s requirements. For example, timely delivery of the required performance plans ensures that the Subcommittee staff will

have ample opportunity to review and use the information. The

plan itself should contain the information the Act was designed to

elicit, and the information should be presented in a clear and usable format. Compliance is evidence of an agency’s commitment to

the Results Act and the goal of performance-based governance.

Conclusion

The Senate Appropriations Committee, like the Federal agencies,

has begun to integrate performance plans into the appropriations

process to provide adequate funding for those programs and

projects properly within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. This integration is an ongoing process, and its success depends largely on the quality of information contained in the performance plans and performance reports. The Committee has and

will continue to monitor agency compliance with the Results Act in

an ongoing effort to streamline agencies and eliminate waste,

thereby achieving efficiencies within the Federal Government. The

robust economy will not deter the Committee in this endeavor. As
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David M. Walker, Comptroller General, testified before the Senate

Budget Committee on February 1, 2000:

‘‘* * * [E]ven if the budget surplus continues, it does

not signal the end of fiscal challenges. Nor does it eliminate the need for prudent stewardship of our national

economy. Projected surpluses do not absolve government of

its responsibility to make good use of taxpayer dollars.’’

Only through a continued Congressional commitment to holding

Federal agencies accountable to performance-based budgeting can

the goals of continued prosperity and an efficient, effective Federal

Government be achieved.

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