GAO

United States General Accounting Office

A

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and 

Financial Management Committee on Government Reform, 

House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 2:00 p.m. EST

Wednesday February 4, 2004

PERFORMANCE 

BUDGETING 

OMB’s Program 

Assessment Rating Tool 

Presents Opportunities and 

Challenges For Budget and 

Performance Integration

Statement of Paul L. Posner

Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues

Strategic Issues

GAO-04-439T
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-439T. 

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Paul Posner at 

(202) 512-9573 or posnerp@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-439T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Government 

Efficiency and Financial Management, 

Committee on Government Reform, 

House of Representatives. 

February 2004

PERFORMANCE BUDGETING 

OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool 

Presents Opportunities and Challenges 

For Budget and Performance Integration 

PART helped structure OMB’s use of performance information for internal 

program and budget analysis and stimulated agency interest in budget and 

performance integration. Moreover, it illustrated the potential to build on 

GPRA’s foundation to more actively promote the use of performance 

information in budget decisions. OMB deserves credit for inviting scrutiny of its 

federal program performance reviews and sharing them on its Web site. 

Much of PART’s potential value lies in its program recommendations but follow 

through will require sustained commitment by agencies and OMB. OMB devoted 

considerable effort to developing PART, but diagnosing problems and rating 

programs are only the beginning of PART’s ambitious agenda. Implementing 

change and providing oversight takes time; OMB needs to be mindful of this as it 

considers capacity and workload issues in the PART. 

As is to be expected in the first year of any reform, PART is a work in progress 

and we noted in our report where OMB might make improvements. Any tool that 

is sophisticated enough to take into account the complexity of the U.S. 

government will require exercising some judgment. Therefore it is not surprising 

that we found inconsistencies in OMB staff interpreting and applying PART. 

PART provides an opportunity to more efficiently use scarce analytic resources, 

to focus decision makers’ attention on the most pressing policy issues, and to 

consider comparisons and trade-offs among related programs by more 

strategically targeting PART assessments based on such factors as the relative 

priorities, costs, and risks associated with related clusters of programs and 

activities. PART assessments underscored long-standing gaps in performance 

and evaluation information throughout the federal government. By reaching 

agreement on areas in which evaluations are most essential, decision makers 

can help ensure that limited resources are applied wisely. 

The relationship between PART and the broader GPRA strategic planning 

process is still evolving. Although PART can stimulate discussion on programspecific performance measurement issues, it is not a substitute for GPRA’s 

strategic, longer-term focus on thematic goals, and department- and 

governmentwide crosscutting comparisons. Although PART and GPRA serve 

different needs, a strategy for integrating the two could help strengthen both. 

Federal programs are designed and implemented in dynamic environments 

where competing program priorities and stakeholders’ needs must be balanced 

continually and new needs addressed. PART clearly serves OMB’s needs but 

questions remain about whether it serves the various needs of other key 

stakeholders. If PART results are to be considered in the congressional debate it 

will be important for OMB to (1) involve congressional stakeholders early in 

providing input on the focus of the assessments; (2) clarify any significant 

limitations in the assessments and underlying performance information; and (3) 

initiate discussions with key congressional committees about how they can best 

leverage PART information in congressional authorization, appropriations, and 

oversight processes. 

The Office of Management and 

Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment 

Rating Tool (PART) is meant to 

provide a consistent approach to 

evaluating federal programs during 

budget formulation. The 

subcommittee asked GAO to discuss 

our recent report, Performance 

Budgeting: Observations on the Use 

of OMB’s Program Assessment 

Rating Tool for the Fiscal 2004 

Budget (GAO-04-174) and strategies 

for improving PART and furthering 

the goals envisioned by the 

Government Performance and 

Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). 

In our recent report on PART we 

recommended that the Director of 

OMB (1) address the capacity 

demands of PART, (2) strengthen 

PART guidance, (3) address 

evaluation information scope and 

availability issues, (4) focus program 

selection on critical operations and 

crosscutting comparisons, (5) expand 

the dialogue with Congress, and 

(6) articulate and implement a 

complementary relationship between 

PART and GPRA. 

OMB generally agreed with our 

findings, conclusions, and 

recommendations and said it is 

already taking actions to address 

many of our recommendations. 

We also suggested that Congress 

consider the need for a structured 

approach to articulating its 

perspective and oversight agenda on 

performance goals and priorities for 

key programs. 
Page 1 GAO-04-439T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I am pleased to be here today to discuss performance budgeting and the 

Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment Rating 

Tool (PART). Since the 1950s, the federal government has attempted 

several governmentwide initiatives designed to better align spending 

decisions with expected performance—what is commonly referred to as 

“performance budgeting.” The consensus is that prior efforts—including 

the Hoover Commission, the Planning-Programming-Budgeting-System 

(PPBS), Management by Objectives, and Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB)—did 

not succeed in significantly shifting the focus of the federal budget process 

from its long-standing concentration on the items of government spending 

to the results of its programs. However, the persistent attempts reflect a 

long-standing interest in linking resources to results. 

In the 1990s, Congress and the executive branch laid out a statutory and 

management framework that provides the foundation for strengthening 

government performance and accountability, with the Government 

Performance and Results Act of 19931

 (GPRA) as its centerpiece. GPRA is 

designed to inform congressional and executive decision making by 

providing objective information on the relative effectiveness and efficiency 

of federal programs and spending. A key purpose of the act is to create 

closer and clearer links between the process of allocating scarce resources 

and the expected results to be achieved with those resources. We have 

learned that this type of integration is critical from prior initiatives that 

failed in part because they did not prove to be relevant to budget decision 

makers in the executive branch or Congress.2

 GPRA requires both a 

connection to the structures used in congressional budget presentations 

and consultation between the executive and legislative branches on agency 

strategic plans; this gives Congress an oversight stake in GPRA’s success.3

1

 Pub. L. No. 103-62 (1993).

2

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Performance Budgeting: Past Initiatives Offer Insights 

for GPRA Implementation, GAO/AIMD-97-46 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27, 1997).

3

 See Pub. L. No. 103-62 § 2 (1993), 5 U.S.C. § 306 (2003), and 31 U.S.C. §§ 1115-1116 (2003).
Page 2 GAO-04-439T 

This administration has made the integration of performance and budget 

information one of five governmentwide management priorities under the 

President’s Management Agenda (PMA).4

 Central to this initiative is the 

PART. OMB developed PART as a diagnostic tool meant to provide a 

consistent approach to evaluating federal programs and applied it in 

formulating the President’s fiscal year 2004 budget request. PART covers 

four broad topics for all “programs”5

 selected for review: (1) program 

purpose and design, (2) strategic planning, (3) program management, and 

(4) program results (i.e., whether a program is meeting its long-term and 

annual goals) as well as additional questions that are specific to one of 

seven mechanisms or approaches used to deliver the program.6

GPRA expanded the supply of performance information generated by 

federal agencies, although as the PART assessments demonstrate, more 

must be done to develop credible performance information. However, 

improving the supply of performance information is in and of itself 

insufficient to sustain performance management and achieve real 

improvements in management and program results. Rather, it needs to be 

accompanied by a demand for that information by decision makers and 

managers alike. PART may mark a new chapter in performance-based 

budgeting by more successfully stimulating demand for this information— 

that is, using the performance information generated through GPRA’s 

planning and reporting processes to more directly feed into executive 

branch budgetary decisions.

My statement today focuses on six points:

• PART helped structure OMB’s use of performance information for its 

internal program and budget analysis, made the use of this information 

4

 In addition to budget and performance integration, the other four priorities under the PMA 

are strategic management of human capital, expanded electronic government, improved 

financial performance, and competitive sourcing. 

5

 There is no standard definition for the term “program.” For purposes of PART, OMB 

described the unit of analysis (program) as (1) an activity or set of activities clearly 

recognized as a program by the public, OMB, or Congress; (2) having a discrete level of 

funding clearly associated with it; and (3) corresponding to the level at which budget 

decisions are made.

6

 The seven major categories are competitive grants, block/formula grants, capital assets 

and service acquisition programs, credit programs, regulatory-based programs, direct 

federal programs, and research and development programs. Tax programs were not 

addressed for the fiscal year 2004 PART process.
Page 3 GAO-04-439T 

more transparent, and stimulated agency interest in budget and 

performance integration. Moreover, it illustrated the potential to build 

on GPRA’s foundation to more actively promote the use of performance 

information in budget decisions. 

• Much of the potential value of PART lies in the related program 

recommendations and associated improvements, but follow through 

will require sustained commitment by agencies and OMB. OMB’s efforts 

in developing PART have been considerable, but diagnosing problems 

and applying ratings are the beginning not the end of PART’s ambitious 

agenda. Identifying solutions, implementing changes, and providing 

oversight takes time, and OMB needs to be mindful of this as it 

considers the capacity and workload issues in the PART. 

• As is to be expected in the first year of any reform, PART is a work in 

progress and we noted in our report where OMB might make 

improvements. Any tool that is sophisticated enough to take into 

account the complexity of the U.S. government will require some 

exercise of judgment. Therefore it is not surprising that we found some 

inconsistencies in OMB staff interpreting and applying PART. 

• PART provides an opportunity to more efficiently use scarce analytic 

resources, to focus decision makers’ attention on the most pressing 

policy issues, and to consider comparisons and trade-offs among related 

programs by more strategically targeting PART assessments based on 

such factors as the relative priorities, costs, and risks associated with 

related clusters of programs and activities. The first year PART 

assessments underscored the long-standing gaps in performance and 

evaluation information throughout the federal government. By reaching 

agreement on areas in which evaluations are most essential, decision 

makers can help ensure that limited resources are applied wisely. 

• The relationship between PART and its process and the broader GPRA 

strategic planning process is still evolving. Although PART can stimulate 

discussion on program-specific performance measurement issues, it is 

not a substitute for GPRA’s strategic, longer-term focus on thematic 

goals and department- and governmentwide crosscutting comparisons. 

Although PART and GPRA serve different needs, a strategy for 

integrating the two could help strengthen both.

• Federal programs are designed and implemented in dynamic 

environments where competing program priorities and stakeholders’ 
Page 4 GAO-04-439T 

needs must be balanced continually and new needs must be addressed. 

While PART clearly serves the needs of OMB in budget formulation, 

questions remain about whether it serves the various needs of other key

stakeholders. If the President or OMB wants the PART and its results to 

be considered in the congressional debate, it will be important for OMB 

to (1) involve congressional stakeholders early in providing input on the 

focus of the assessments; (2) clarify any significant limitations in the 

assessments as well as the underlying performance information; and (3) 

initiate discussions with key congressional committees about how they 

can best take advantage of and leverage PART information in 

congressional authorization, appropriations, and oversight processes. 

Moreover, Congress needs to consider ways it can articulate its 

oversight priorities and performance agenda.

My statement is based on our recently published report on OMB’s PART.7

This subcommittee along with several other requesters asked GAO to 

review the application of PART in its first year, its relationship to GPRA 

planning and reporting requirements, and its strengths and weaknesses as 

an evaluation tool. We conducted our work in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards.

Strengths and 

Weaknesses of PART in 

Its First Year of 

Implementation 

Through its development and use of PART, OMB has more explicitly 

infused performance information into the budget formulation process; 

increased the attention paid to evaluation and to performance information; 

and ultimately, we hope, increased the value of this information to decision 

makers and other stakeholders. By linking performance information to the 

budget process, OMB has provided agencies with a powerful incentive for 

improving both the quality and availability of performance information. 

The level of effort and involvement by senior OMB officials and staff clearly 

signals the importance of this strategy in meeting the priorities outlined in 

the PMA. OMB should be credited with opening up for scrutiny—and 

potential criticism—its review of key areas of federal program 

performance and then making its assessments available to a potentially 

wider audience through its Web site.

7

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Performance Budgeting: Observations on the Use of 

OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool for the Fiscal Year 2004 Budget, GAO-04-174

(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 30, 2004).
Page 5 GAO-04-439T 

As OMB and others recognize, performance is not the only factor in funding 

decisions. Determining priorities—including funding priorities—is a 

function of competing values and interests. Accordingly, we found that 

while PART scores were generally positively related to proposed funding 

changes in discretionary programs, the scores did not automatically 

determine funding changes. That is, for some programs rated “effective” or 

“moderately effective” OMB recommended funding decreases, while for 

several programs judged to be “ineffective” OMB recommended additional 

funding in the President’s budget request with which to implement 

changes. In fact, the more important role of PART was not its use in making 

resource decisions, but in its support for recommendations to improve 

program design, assessment, and management. 

As shown in figure 1, we found that 82 percent of PART’s recommendations 

addressed program assessment, design, and management issues; only 18 

percent of the recommendations had a direct link to funding matters.8

Figure 1: Fiscal Year 2004 PART Recommendations 

8

 The 234 programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 contained a total of 612 recommendations.
Page 6 GAO-04-439T 

OMB’s ability to use PART to identify and address future program 

improvements and measure progress—a major purpose of PART—depends 

on its ability to oversee the implementation of PART recommendations. As 

OMB has recognized, following through on these recommendations is 

essential for improving program performance and ensuring accountability.

Currently, OMB plans to assess an additional 20 percent of all federal 

programs annually. As the number of recommendations from previous 

years’ evaluations grows, a system for monitoring their implementation will 

become more critical. However, OMB does not have a centralized system to 

oversee the implementation of such recommendations or evaluate their 

effectiveness.

The goal of PART is to evaluate programs systematically, consistently, and 

transparently. OMB went to great lengths to encourage consistent 

application of PART in the evaluation of government programs, including 

pilot testing the instrument, issuing detailed guidance, and conducting 

consistency reviews. Although there is undoubtedly room for continued 

improvement, any tool is inherently limited in providing a single 

performance answer or judgment on complex federal programs with 

multiple goals. 

Performance measurement challenges in evaluating complex federal 

programs make it difficult to meaningfully interpret a bottom-line rating. 

OMB published both a single, bottom-line rating for PART results and 

individual section scores. It is these latter scores that are potentially more 

useful for identifying information gaps and program weaknesses. For 

example, one program that was rated “adequate” overall got high scores for 

purpose (80 percent) and planning (100 percent), but poor scores in being 

able to show results (39 percent) and in program management (46 percent). 

In a case like this, the individual section ratings provided a better 

understanding of areas needing improvement than the overall rating alone. 

In addition, bottom-line ratings may force raters to choose among several 

important, but disparate goals and encourage a determination of program 

effectiveness even when performance data are unavailable, the quality of 

those data is uneven, or they convey a mixed message on performance. 

Any tool that is sophisticated enough to take into account the complexity 

of the U.S. government will always require some interpretation and 

judgment. Therefore it is not surprising that OMB staff were not fully 

consistent in interpreting complex questions about agency goals and 

results. In addition, the limited availability of credible evidence on program 
Page 7 GAO-04-439T 

results also constrained OMB’s ability to use PART to rate programs’ 

effectiveness.

Many PART questions contain subjective terms that are open to 

interpretation. Examples include terminology such as “ambitious” in 

describing sought-after performance measures. Because the 

appropriateness of a performance measure depends on the program’s 

purpose, and because program purposes can vary immensely, an ambitious 

goal for one program might be unrealistic for a similar but more narrowly 

defined program. Without further guidance, it is unclear how OMB staff can 

be expected to be consistent.

We found inconsistencies in how the definition of acceptable performance 

measures was applied. Our review surfaced several instances in which 

OMB staff inconsistently defined appropriate measures—outcome versus 

output—for programs. Agency officials also told us that OMB staff used 

different standards to define measures as outcome-oriented. Outputs are 

the products and services delivered by the program whereas outcomes 

refer to the results of outputs. For example, in the employment and training 

area, OMB accepted short-term outcomes, such as obtaining high school 

diplomas or employment, as a proxy for long-term goals for the 

Department of Health and Human Services’ Refugee Assistance program, 

which aims to help refugees attain economic self-sufficiency as soon as 

possible. However, OMB did not accept the same employment rate measure 

as a proxy for long-term goals for the Department of Education’s Vocational 

Rehabilitation program because it had not set long-term targets beyond a 

couple of years. In other words, although neither program contained longterm outcomes, such as participants gaining economic self-sufficiency, 

OMB accepted short-term outcomes in one instance but not the other. 

The yes/no format employed throughout most of the PART questionnaire 

resulted in oversimplified answers to some questions. Although OMB 

believes it helped standardization, the yes/no format was particularly 

troublesome for questions containing multiple criteria for a “yes” answer. 

Agency officials have commented that the yes/no format is a crude 

reflection of reality, in which progress in planning, management, or results 

is more likely to resemble a continuum than an on/off switch. We found 

several instances in which some OMB staff gave a “yes” answer for 

successfully achieving some but not all of the multiple criteria, while others 

gave a “no” answer when presented with a similar situation. For example, 

OMB judged the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Water Reuse and 

Recycling program “no” on whether a program has a limited number of 
Page 8 GAO-04-439T 

ambitious, long-term performance goals, noting that although DOI set a 

long-term goal of 500,000 acre-feet per year of reclaimed water, it failed to 

establish a time frame for when it would reach the target. However, OMB 

judged the Department of Agriculture’s and DOI’s Wildland Fire programs 

“yes” on this question even though the programs’ long-term goals of 

improved conditions in high-priority forest acres are not accompanied by 

specific time frames. 

The lack of program performance information also creates challenges in 

effectively measuring program performance. According to OMB, about half 

of the programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 lacked “specific, ambitious 

long-term performance goals that focus on outcomes” and nearly 40 

percent lacked sufficient “independent, quality evaluations.” Nearly 50 

percent of programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 received ratings of 

“results not demonstrated” because OMB decided that program 

performance information, performance goals, or both were insufficient or 

inadequate. While the validity of these assessments may be subject to 

interpretation and debate, our previous work9

 has raised concerns about 

the capacity of federal agencies to produce evaluations of program 

effectiveness as well as credible data. 

The Relationship 

between GPRA and 

PART 

PART was designed for and is used in the executive branch budget 

preparation and review process. As a result, the goals and measures used in 

PART must meet OMB’s needs. By comparison, GPRA—the current 

statutory framework for strategic planning and reporting—is a broader 

process involving the development of strategic and performance goals and 

objectives to be reported in strategic and annual plans and reports. OMB 

said that GPRA plans were organized at too high a level to be meaningful 

for program-level budget analysis and management review. OMB 

acknowledges that GPRA was the starting point for PART, but as I will 

explain, it appears that OMB’s emphasis is shifting such that over time the 

performance measures developed for PART and used in the budget process 

may also come to drive agencies’ strategic planning processes.

9

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Program Evaluation: Agencies Challenged by New 

Demand for Information on Program Results, GAO/GGD-98-53 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 24, 

1998).
Page 9 GAO-04-439T 

The fiscal year 2004 PART process came to be a parallel competing 

structure to the GPRA framework as a result of OMB’s desire to collect 

performance data that better align with budget decision units. OMB’s most 

recent Circular A-11 guidance clearly requires both that each agency 

submit a performance budget for fiscal year 2005 and that this should 

replace the annual GPRA performance plan.10 These performance budgets 

are to include information from the PART assessments, where available, 

including all performance goals used in the assessment of program 

performance done under the PART process. Until all programs have been 

assessed using PART, the performance budget will also include 

performance goals for agency programs that have not yet been assessed. 

OMB’s movement from GPRA to PART is further evident in the fiscal year 

2005 PART guidance stating that while existing GPRA performance goals 

may be a starting point during the development of PART performance 

goals, the GPRA goals in agency GPRA documents are to be revised, as 

needed, to reflect OMB’s instructions for developing the PART 

performance goals. Lastly, this same guidance states that GPRA plans 

should be revised to include any new performance measures used in PART 

and that unnecessary measures should be deleted from GPRA plans. 

Although there is potential for complementary approaches to GPRA and 

PART, the following examples clearly illustrate the importance of carefully 

considering the implications of selecting a unit of analysis, including its 

impact on the availability of performance data. They also reveal some of 

the unresolved tensions between the President’s budget and performance 

initiative—a detailed budget perspective—and GPRA—a more strategic 

planning view. Experience with the PART highlighted the fact that defining 

a “unit of analysis” useful for both program-level budget analysis and 

agency planning purposes can be difficult. For example, disaggregating 

programs for PART purposes could ignore the interdependence of 

programs recognized by GPRA by artificially isolating programs from the 

larger contexts in which they operate. Agency officials described one 

program assessed with the PART—Projects for Assistance in Transition 

from Homelessness—that was aimed at a specific aspect of homelessness, 

that is, referring persons with emergency needs to other agencies for 

housing and needed services. OMB staff wanted the agency to produce 

long-term outcome measures for this program to support the PART review 

process. Agency officials argued that chronically homeless people require 

many services, and that this federal program often supports only some of 

10 OMB Circular A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget.
Page 10 GAO-04-439T 

the services needed at the initial stages of intervention. GPRA—with its 

focus on assessing the relative contributions of related programs to 

broader goals—is better designed to consider crosscutting strategies to 

achieve common goals. Federal programs cannot be assessed in isolation. 

Performance needs also to be examined from an integrated, strategic 

perspective.

One way of improving the links between PART and GPRA would be to 

develop a more strategic approach to selecting and prioritizing areas for 

assessment under the PART process. Targeting PART assessments based 

on such factors as the relative priorities, costs, and risks associated with 

related clusters of programs and activities addressing common strategic 

and performance goals not only could help ration scarce analytic resources 

but also could focus decision makers’ attention on the most pressing policy 

and program issues. Moreover, such an approach could facilitate the use of 

PART assessments to review the relative contributions of similar programs 

to common or crosscutting goals and outcomes established through the 

GPRA process. 

The Importance of 

Congressional and 

Other Stakeholder 

Involvement

We have previously reported11 that stakeholder involvement appears 

critical for getting consensus on goals and measures. In fact, GPRA 

requires agencies to consult with Congress and solicit the views of other 

stakeholders as they develop their strategic plans.12 Stakeholder 

involvement can be particularly important for federal agencies because 

they operate in a complex political environment in which legislative 

mandates are often broadly stated and some stakeholders may strongly 

disagree about the agency’s mission and goals. 

The relationship between PART and its process and the broader GPRA 

strategic planning process is still evolving. As part of the executive branch 

budget formulation process, PART must clearly serve the President’s 

interests. Some tension about the amount of stakeholder involvement in 

the internal deliberations surrounding the development of PART measures 

and the broader consultations more common to the GPRA strategic 

11 U.S. General Accounting Office, Agencies’ Strategic Plans Under GPRA: Key Questions to 

Facilitate Congressional Review (Version 1), GAO/GGD-10.1.16 (Washington, D.C.: May 

1997).

12 5 U.S.C. § 306(d) (2003).
Page 11 GAO-04-439T 

planning process is inevitable. Compared to the relatively open-ended 

GPRA process, any budget formulation process is likely to seem closed. 

Yet, we must ask whether the broad range of congressional officials with a 

stake in how programs perform will use PART assessments unless they 

believe the reviews reflect a consensus about performance goals among a 

community of interests, target performance issues that are important to 

them as well as the administration, and are based on an evaluation process 

that they have confidence in. Similarly, the measures used to demonstrate 

progress toward a goal, no matter how worthwhile, cannot serve the 

interests of a single stakeholder or purpose without potentially 

discouraging use of this information by others. Accordingly, if PART is to 

be accepted as other than one element in the development of the 

President’s budget proposal, congressional understanding and acceptance 

of the tool and analysis will be important. 

Congress has a number of opportunities to provide its perspective on 

performance issues and performance goals, such as when it establishes or 

reauthorizes a new program, during the annual appropriations process, and 

in its oversight of federal operations. In fact, these processes already 

reflect GPRA’s influence. Reviews of language in public laws and 

committee reports show an increasing number of references to GPRArelated provisions. What is missing is a mechanism to systematically 

coordinate a congressional perspective. 

In our report, we have suggested steps for both OMB and the Congress to 

take to strengthen the dialogue between executive officials and 

congressional stakeholders. We have recommended that OMB reach out to 

key congressional committees early in the PART selection process to gain 

insight about which program areas and performance issues congressional 

officials consider warrant PART review. Engaging Congress early in the 

process may help target reviews with an eye toward those areas most likely 

to be on the agenda of the Congress, thereby better ensuring the use of 

performance assessments in resource allocation processes throughout 

government. We have also suggested that Congress consider the need to 

develop a more systematic vehicle for communicating its top performance 

concerns and priorities; develop a more structured oversight agenda to 

prompt a more coordinated congressional perspective on crosscutting 

performance issues; and use this agenda to inform its authorization, 

appropriations, and oversight processes. 
Page 12 GAO-04-439T 

Concluding 

Observations

The PART process is the latest initiative in a long-standing series of reforms 

undertaken to improve the link between performance information and 

budget decisions. Although each of the initiatives of the past appears to 

have met with an early demise, in fact, subsequent reforms were 

strengthened by building on the legacy left by their predecessors. Prior 

reforms often failed because they were not relevant to resource allocation 

and other decision making processes, thereby eroding the incentives for 

federal agencies to improve their planning, data, and evaluations. 

Unlike many of those past initiatives, GPRA has been sustained since its 

passage 10 years ago, and evidence exists that it has become more relevant 

than its predecessors. PART offers the potential to build on the 

infrastructure of performance plans and information ushered in by GPRA 

and the law’s intent to promote the use of these plans in resource allocation 

decision making. GPRA improved the supply of plans and information, 

while PART can prompt greater demand for this information by decision 

makers. Potentially, enhancing interest and use may bring about greater 

incentives by agencies to devote scarce resources to improving their 

information and evaluations of federal programs as well.

Increasing the use and usefulness of performance data is not only 

important to sustain performance management reforms, but to improve the 

processes of decision making and governance. Many in the U.S. believe 

there is a need to establish a comprehensive portfolio of key national 

performance indicators. This will raise complex issues ranging from 

agreement on performance areas and indicators to getting and sharing 

reliable information for public planning, decision making, and 

accountability. In this regard, the entire agenda of management reform at 

the federal level has been focused on shifting decision making and agency 

management from process to results. Although the PART is based on 

changing the orientation of budgeting, other initiatives championed by 

Congress and embodied in the PMA are also devoted to improving the 

accountability for performance goals in agency human capital 

management, financial management, competitive sourcing, and other key 

management areas. 

In particular, we have reported that human capital—or people—is at the 

center of any serious change management initiative. Thus, strategic human 

capital management is at the heart of government transformation. Highperforming organizations strengthen the alignment of their GPRA strategic 

and performance goals with their daily operations. In that regard, 
Page 13 GAO-04-439T 

performance management systems can be a vital—but currently largely 

unused tool—to align an organization’s operations with individual day-today activities. As we move forward to strengthen government performance 

and accountability, effective performance management systems can be a 

strategic tool to drive internal change and achieve desired results.

The question now is how to enhance the credibility and use of the PART 

process as a tool to focus decisions on performance. In our report, we 

make seven recommendations to OMB and a suggestion to Congress to 

better support the kind of collaborative approach to performance 

budgeting that very well may be essential in a separation of powers system 

like ours. Our suggestions cover several key issues that need to be 

addressed to strengthen and help sustain the PART process. We 

recommend that the OMB Director take the following actions:

• Centrally monitor agency implementation and progress on PART 

recommendations and report such progress in OMB’s budget 

submission to Congress. Governmentwide councils may be effective 

vehicles for assisting OMB in these efforts.

• Continue to improve the PART guidance by (1) expanding the 

discussion of how the unit of analysis is to be determined to include 

trade-offs made when defining a unit of analysis, implications of how the 

unit of analysis is defined, or both; (2) clarifying when output versus 

outcome measures are acceptable; and (3) better defining an 

“independent, quality evaluation.”

• Clarify OMB’s expectations to agencies regarding the allocation of 

scarce evaluation resources among programs, the timing of such 

evaluations, as well as the evaluation strategies it wants for the PART, 

and consider using internal agency evaluations as evidence on a case-bycase basis—whether conducted by agencies, contractors, or other 

parties.

• Reconsider plans for 100 percent coverage of federal programs and, 

instead, target for review a significant percentage of major and 

meaningful government programs based on such factors as the relative 

priorities, costs, and risks associated with related clusters of programs 

and activities.

• Maximize the opportunity to review similar programs or activities in the 

same year to facilitate comparisons and trade-offs.
Page 14 GAO-04-439T 

• Attempt to generate, early in the PART process, an ongoing, meaningful 

dialogue with congressional appropriations, authorization, and 

oversight committees about what they consider to be the most 

important performance issues and program areas that warrant review.

• Seek to achieve the greatest benefit from both GPRA and PART by 

articulating and implementing an integrated, complementary 

relationship between the two.

In its comments on our report, OMB outlined actions it is taking to address 

several of these recommendations, including refining the process for 

monitoring agencies’ progress in implementing the PART 

recommendations, seeking opportunities for dialogue with Congress on 

agencies’ performance, and continuing to improve executive branch 

implementation of GPRA plans and reports.

Our recommendations to OMB are partly directed at fortifying and 

enhancing the credibility of the PART itself and the underlying data used to 

make the judgments. Decision makers across government are more likely 

to rely on PART data and assessments if the underlying information and the 

rating process are perceived as being credible, systematic, and consistent. 

Enhanced OMB guidance and improved strategies for obtaining and 

evaluating program performance data are vital elements.

The PART process can be made more sustainable if the use of analytic 

resources at OMB and the agencies is rationalized by reconsidering the goal 

of 100 percent coverage of all federal programs. Instead, we suggest a more 

strategic approach to target assessments on related clusters of programs 

and activities. A more targeted approach stands a better chance of 

capturing the interest of decision makers throughout the process by 

focusing their attention on the most pressing policy and program issues on 

how related programs and tools affect broader crosscutting outcomes and 

goals. Unfortunately, the governmentwide performance plan required by 

GPRA has never been engaged to drive budgeting in this way.

Improving the integration of inherently separate but interrelated strategic 

planning and performance budgeting processes can help support a more 

strategic focus for PART assessments. GPRA’s strategic planning goals 

could be used to anchor the selection and review of programs by providing 

a foundation to assess the relative contribution of related programs and 

tools to broader performance goals and outcomes. 
Page 15 GAO-04-439T 

Finally, refining the PART questionnaire and review process, and improving

the quality of data are important, but the question of whose interests drive 

the process is perhaps paramount in our system. Ultimately, the impact of 

PART on decision making will be a function not only of the President’s 

decisions, but of congressional decisions as well. 

Much is at stake in the development of a collaborative performance 

budgeting process. Not only might the PART reviews come to be 

disregarded absent congressional involvement, but more important, 

Congress will lose an opportunity to use the PART process to improve its 

own decision making and oversight processes.

This is an opportune time for the executive branch and Congress to 

carefully consider how agencies and committees can best take advantage 

of and leverage the new information and perspectives coming from the 

reform agenda under way in the executive branch. Ultimately, the specific 

approach or process is not important. We face a long-term fiscal imbalance, 

which will require us to reexamine our existing policies and programs. It is 

all too easy to accept “the base” as given and to subject only new proposals 

to scrutiny and analysis. The norm should be to reconsider the relevance or 

“fit” of any federal program, policy, or activity in today’s world and for the 

future.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to 

answer any questions you or the other members of the Committee may 

have at this time.

For future contacts regarding this testimony, please call Paul L. Posner, 

Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues, at (202) 512-9573. Individuals 

making key contributions to this testimony included Denise M. Fantone 

and Jacqueline Nowicki.

(450291)
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