a

GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to Congressional Requesters

January 2004 PERFORMANCE 

BUDGETING

Observations on the 

Use of OMB’s Program 

Assessment Rating 

Tool for the Fiscal 

Year 2004 Budget

GAO-04-174
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-174. 

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-04-174, a report to 

congressional requesters 

January 2004

PERFORMANCE BUDGETING 

Observations on the Use of OMB's 

Program Assessment Rating Tool for the 

Fiscal Year 2004 Budget 

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

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

transparent, and stimulated agency interest in budget and performance 

integration. OMB and agency staff said this helped OMB staff with varying 

levels of experience focus on similar issues. 

 

Our analysis confirmed that one of PART’s major impacts was its ability to 

highlight OMB’s recommended changes in program management and design. 

Much of PART’s potential value lies in the related program 

recommendations, but realizing these benefits requires sustained attention 

to implementation and oversight to determine if desired results are achieved. 

OMB needs to be cognizant of this as it considers capacity and workload 

issues in PART.

There are inherent challenges in assigning a single rating to programs having 

multiple purposes and goals. OMB devoted considerable effort to promoting 

consistent ratings, but challenges remain in addressing inconsistencies 

among OMB staff, such as interpreting PART guidance and defining 

acceptable measures. Limited credible evidence on results also constrained 

OMB’s ability to rate program effectiveness, as evidenced by the almost 50 

percent of programs rated “results not demonstrated.” 

PART is not well integrated with GPRA—the current statutory framework 

for strategic planning and reporting. By using the PART process to review 

and sometimes replace GPRA goals and measures, OMB is substituting its 

judgment for a wide range of stakeholder interests. The PART/GPRA tension 

was further highlighted by challenges in defining a unit of analysis useful for 

both program-level budget analysis and agency planning purposes. Although 

PART can stimulate discussion on program-specific measurement issues, it 

cannot substitute for GPRA’s focus on thematic goals and department- and 

governmentwide crosscutting comparisons. Moreover, PART does not 

currently evaluate similar programs together to facilitate trade-offs or make 

relative comparisons. 

PART clearly must serve the President’s interests. However, the many actors 

whose input is critical to decisions will not likely use performance 

information unless they feel it is credible and reflects a consensus on goals. 

It will be important for OMB to discuss timely with Congress the focus of 

PART assessments and clarify the results and limitations of PART and the 

underlying performance information. A more systematic congressional 

approach to providing its perspective on performance issues and goals could 

facilitate OMB’s understanding of congressional priorities and thus increase 

PART’s usefulness in budget deliberations.

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. To better understand 

its potential, congressional 

requesters asked GAO to examine 

(1) how PART changed OMB’s 

fiscal year 2004 budget decisionmaking process, (2) PART’s 

relationship to the Government 

Performance and Results Act of 

1993 (GPRA), and (3) PART’s 

strengths and weaknesses as an 

evaluation tool. 

GAO recommends that OMB 

(1) address the capacity demands 

of PART, (2) strengthen PART 

guidance, (3) address evaluation 

information availability and scope 

issues, (4) focus program selection 

on crosscutting comparisons and 

critical operations, (5) broaden the 

dialogue with congressional 

stakeholders, and 

(6) articulate and implement a 

complementary relationship 

between PART and GPRA. 

OMB generally agreed with our 

findings, conclusions, and 

recommendations and stated that it 

is already taking actions to address 

many of our recommendations. 

GAO also suggests 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 i GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4

Background 8

OMB Used the PART to Systematically Assess Program Performance 

and Make Results Known, but Follow-up on PART 

Recommendations Is Uncertain 11

Despite OMB’s Considerable Efforts to Create a Credible Evaluation 

Tool, PART Assessments Require Judgment and Were 

Constrained by Data Limitations 17

Subjective Terms and a Restrictive Format Contributed to 

Subjective and Inconsistent Responses 20

There Were Inconsistencies in Defining Acceptable Measures and in 

Logically Responding to Question “Pairs” 21

Disagreements on Performance Information Led to Creation of a 

“Results Not Demonstrated” Category 25

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART Process Was a Parallel, Competing 

Approach to GPRA’s Performance Management Framework 27

Defining a “Unit of Analysis” That Is Useful for Program-Level 

Budget Analysis and Agency Planning Purposes Presents 

Challenges 29

Conclusions and General Observations 33

Matter for Congressional Consideration 36

Recommendations for Executive Action 36

Agency Comments 37

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 39

Appendix II: The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences Between the 

Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs 48

Section I: Program Purpose & Design (Yes, No, N/A) 48

Section II: Strategic Planning (Yes, No, N/A) 48

Section III: Program Management (Yes, No, N/A) 50

Section IV: Program Results (Yes, Large Extent, Small 

Extent, No) 53

Appendix III: Development of PART 62

Fiscal Year 2003 62

Fiscal Year 2004 62

Fiscal Year 2005 64

Appendix IV: Comments from the Office of Management and Budget 65
Contents

Page ii GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 67

GAO Contacts 67

Acknowledgments 67

Tables Table 1: Overview of Sections of PART Questions 9

Table 2: Overview of PART Program Types 10

Table 3: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding 

Changes (Discretionary Programs) 43

Table 4: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding 

Changes (Small Discretionary Programs) 44

Table 5: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding 

Changes (Medium-Size Discretionary Programs) 44

Table 6: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding 

Changes (Large Discretionary Programs) 44

Table 7: The Effect of PART Component Scores on Proposed 

Funding Changes (All Discretionary Programs) 45

Table 8: The Effect of PART Component Scores on Proposed 

Funding Changes (Small Discretionary Programs) 45

Table 9: Side-by-Side of the Fiscal Year 2005 PART and the Fiscal 

Year 2004 PART Questions 54

Figures Figure 1: Fiscal Year 2004 PART Recommendations 13

Figure 2: Number of Discretionary PART Programs by Rating and 

Funding Result, Fiscal Years 2003-2004 14

Figure 3: The PART Process and Budget Formulation Timelines 64

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Page 1 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

January 30, 2004 Letr

The Honorable George V. Voinovich

Chairman

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 

Workforce and the District of Columbia

Committee on Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Todd R. Platts

Chairman

Subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management 

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

The Honorable Sam Brownback

United States Senate

The Honorable Todd Tiahrt

House of Representatives

Since the 1950s, the federal government has attempted several 

governmentwide initiatives designed to better align spending decisions 

with expected performance—what is often commonly referred to as 

“performance budgeting.” Consensus exists that prior efforts—including 

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

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

failed to significantly shift the focus of the federal budget process from its 

long-standing concentration on the items of government spending to the 

results of its programs. 

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

1

 Pub. L. No. 103-62 (1993).
Page 2 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

and the expected results to be achieved with those resources. This type of 

integration is critical, as we have learned 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 not only a connection to 

the structures used in congressional budget presentations but also 

consultation between the executive and legislative branches on agency 

strategic plans, which gives Congress an oversight stake in GPRA’s 

success.3

In its overall structure, focus, and approach GPRA incorporates two critical 

lessons learned from previous reforms. First, any approach designed to link 

plans and budgets—that is, to link the responsibility of the executive to 

define strategies and approaches with the legislative “power of the 

purse”—must explicitly involve both branches of our government. PPBS 

and ZBB failed in part because performance plans and measures were 

developed in isolation from congressional oversight and resource 

allocation processes. 

Second, the concept of performance budgeting has and likely will continue 

to evolve. Thus, no single definition of performance budgeting 

encompasses the range of past and present needs and interests of federal 

decision makers. The need for multiple definitions reflects the differences 

in the roles various participants play in the budget process. And, given the 

complexity and breadth of the federal budget process, performance 

budgeting must encompass a variety of perspectives in its efforts to link 

resources with results.

This administration has made the integration of performance and budget 

information one of five governmentwide management priorities under its 

President’s Management Agenda (PMA).4

 A central element in this initiative 

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

Rating Tool (PART) that OMB describes as a diagnostic tool meant to 

provide a consistent approach to evaluating federal programs as part of the

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).

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. 
Page 3 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

executive budget formulation process. The PART is the latest iteration of 

50 years of federal performance budgeting initiatives. It applies 25 

questions to all “programs”5

 under four broad topics: (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

To better understand the PART’s potential as a mechanism for assessing 

program goals and results, you asked us to examine (1) how the PART 

changed OMB’s decision-making process in developing the President’s 

fiscal year 2004 budget request; (2) the PART’s relationship to the GPRA 

planning process and reporting requirements; and (3) the PART’s strengths 

and weaknesses as an evaluation tool, including how OMB ensured that the 

PART was applied consistently. 

To respond to your request, we reviewed OMB materials on the 

development and implementation of the PART as well as the results 

produced by the PART assessments. To assess consistency of the PART’s 

application, we performed analyses of OMB data from the PART program 

summary and assessment worksheets for each of the 234 programs OMB 

reviewed for fiscal year 2004, including a statistical analysis of the 

relationship between the PART scores and funding levels in the President's 

Budget. We also identified several sets of similar programs that we 

examined more closely to determine if comparable or disparate criteria 

were applied in producing the PART results for these clusters of programs. 

We reviewed 28 programs in nine clusters covering food safety, water 

supply, military equipment procurement, provision of health care, 

statistical agencies, block grants to assist vulnerable populations, energy 

research programs, wildland fire management, and disability 

compensation. We also interviewed OMB officials regarding their 

experiences with the PART in the fiscal year 2004 budget process. 

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, and/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 4 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

As part of our examination of the usefulness of the PART as an evaluation 

tool and also to obtain agency perspectives on the relationship between 

PART and GPRA, we interviewed department and agency officials, 

including senior managers, and program, planning, and budget staffs at

(1) the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), (2) the 

Department of Energy (DOE), and (3) the Department of the Interior (DOI). 

We selected these three departments because they had a variety of program 

types (e.g., block/formula grants, competitive grants, direct federal, and 

research and development) that were subject to the PART and could 

provide a broad-based perspective on how the PART was applied to 

different programs. With the exception of our summary analyses of all 234 

programs, the information obtained from OMB and agency officials and our 

review of selected programs is not generalizable to the PART process for all 

234 programs. However, the consistency and frequency with which similar 

issues were raised by OMB and agency officials suggest that our review 

reliably captures several significant and salient aspects of the PART as a 

budget and evaluation tool.

Our review focused on the fiscal year 2004 PART process. We conducted 

our work from May 2003 through October 2003 in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards. Detailed information 

on our scope and methodology appears in appendix I. OMB provided 

written comments on a draft of this report that are reprinted in appendix IV.

Results in Brief The PART has helped to structure and discipline OMB’s use of performance 

information for its internal program analysis and budget review, made the 

use of this information more transparent, and stimulated agency interest in 

budget and performance integration. Both OMB and agency staff noted that 

this helped ensure that OMB staff with varying levels of experience focused 

on the same issues, fostering a more disciplined approach to discussing 

program performance with agencies. Several agency officials also told us 

that the PART was a catalyst for bringing agency budget, planning, and 

program staff together since none could fully respond to the PART 

questionnaire alone. 

Our analysis confirmed that one of the PART’s major impacts was its ability 

to highlight OMB’s recommended changes in program management and 

design. Over 80 percent of the recommendations made for the 234 

programs assessed for the fiscal year 2004 budget process were for 

improvements in program design, assessment, and program management; 

less than 20 percent were related to funding issues. As OMB and others 
Page 5 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

recognize, performance is not the only factor in funding decisions. 

Determining priorities—including funding priorities—is a function of 

competing values and interests. Although OMB generally proposed to 

increase funding for programs that received ratings of “effective” or 

“moderately effective” and proposed to cut funding for those programs that 

were rated “ineffective,” our review confirmed OMB’s statements that 

funding decisions were not applied mechanistically. 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. 

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

recommendations and associated improvements, but realization of these 

benefits will require sustained attention to implementation and oversight in 

order to determine if the desired results are being achieved. Such attention 

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

considers the capacity and workload issues in the PART. Currently OMB 

plans to assess an additional 20 percent of all federal programs annually.

Each year, the number of recommendations from previous years’ 

evaluations will grow—and a system for monitoring their implementation 

will become more critical. OMB encouraged its Resource Management 

Offices (RMO) to consider many factors in selecting programs for the fiscal 

year 2004 PART assessments, such as continuing presidential initiatives 

and programs up for reauthorization. While all programs would eventually 

be reviewed over the 5-year period, selecting related programs for review 

in a given year would enable decision makers to analyze the relative 

efficacy of similar programs in meeting common or similar outcomes. We 

recommend that OMB centrally monitor and report on agency 

implementation and progress on PART recommendations to provide a 

governmentwide picture of progress and a consolidated view of OMB’s 

workload in this area. In addition, to target scarce analytic resources and to 

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

recommend that OMB reconsider plans for 100 percent coverage of federal 

programs by targeting PART assessments based on such factors as the 

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

programs and activities. We further recommend that OMB select for review 

in the same year related or similar programs or activities to facilitate such 

comparisons and trade-offs. 

Developing a credible evidence-based rating tool to provide bottom-line 

ratings for programs was a major impetus in developing the PART. 
Page 6 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

However, inherent challenges exist in assigning a single “rating” to 

programs that often have multiple purposes and goals. Despite the 

considerable time and effort OMB has devoted to promoting consistent 

application of the PART, the tool is a work in progress. Additional guidance 

and considerable revisions are needed to meet OMB’s goal of an objective, 

evidence-based assessment tool. In addition to difficulties with the tool 

itself—such as subjective terminology and a restrictive yes/no format—

providing flexibility to assess multidimensional programs with multiple 

purposes and goals often implemented through multiple actors has led to a 

reliance on OMB staff judgments to apply general principles to specific 

cases. OMB staff were not fully consistent in interpreting the guidance for 

complex PART questions and in defining acceptable measures. In addition, 

the limited availability of credible evidence on program results also 

constrained OMB staff’s ability to use the PART to rate programs’ 

effectiveness. Almost 50 percent of the 234 programs assessed for fiscal 

year 2004 received a rating of “results not demonstrated” because OMB 

decided that program performance information, performance measures, or 

both were insufficient or inadequate. OMB, recognizing many of the 

limitations with the PART, modified the PART for fiscal year 2005 based on 

lessons learned during the fiscal year 2004 process, but issues remain. We 

therefore recommend that OMB continue to improve the PART guidance by 

(1) clarifying when output versus outcome measures are acceptable and (2) 

better defining an “independent, quality evaluation.” We further 

recommend that OMB both clarify its expectations regarding the nature, 

timing, and amount of evaluation information it wants from agencies for 

the purposes of the PART and consider using internal agency evaluations 

as evidence on a case-by-case basis.

The PART is not well integrated with GPRA—the current statutory 

framework for strategic planning and reporting. According to OMB 

officials, GPRA plans were organized at too high a level to be meaningful 

for program-level budget decision making. To provide decision makers with 

program-specific, outcome-based performance data useful for executive 

budget formulation, OMB has stated its intention to modify GPRA goals 

and measures with those developed under the PART. As a result, OMB’s 

judgment about appropriate goals and measures is substituted for GPRA

judgments based on a community of stakeholder interests. Agency officials
Page 7 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

we spoke with expressed confusion about the relationship between GPRA 

requirements and the PART process. Many view PART’s program-byprogram focus and the substitution of program measures as detrimental to 

their GPRA planning and reporting processes. OMB’s effort to influence 

program goals is further evident in recent OMB Circular A-11 guidance7

that clearly requires each agency to submit a performance budget for fiscal 

year 2005, which will replace the annual GPRA performance plan. 

The tension between PART and GPRA was further highlighted by the 

challenges in defining a unit of analysis that is useful both for program-level 

budget analysis and agency planning purposes. Although the PART reviews 

indicated to OMB that GPRA measures are often not sufficient to help it 

make judgments about programs, the different units of analysis used in 

these two performance initiatives contributed to this outcome. For the 

PART, OMB created units of analysis that tied to discrete funding levels by 

both disaggregating and aggregating certain programs. In some cases, 

disaggregating programs for the PART reviews ignored the 

interdependency of programs by artificially isolating them from the larger 

contexts in which they operate. Conversely, in other cases in which OMB 

aggregated programs with diverse missions and outcomes for the PART 

reviews, it became difficult to settle on a single measure (or set of 

measures) that accurately captured the multiple missions of these diverse 

components. Both of these “unit of analysis” issues contributed to the lack 

of available planning and performance information. 

Although the 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. GPRA is a broad legislative 

framework that was designed to be consultative with Congress and other 

stakeholders and allows for varying uses of performance information, 

while the PART applies evaluation information to support decisions and 

program reviews during the executive budget formulation process. 

Moreover, GPRA can anchor the review of programs by providing an 

overall strategic context for programs’ contributions toward agency goals. 

We therefore recommend that OMB seek to achieve the greatest benefit 

from both GPRA and PART by articulating and implementing an integrated, 

complementary relationship between the two. We further recommend that 

OMB continue to improve the PART guidance by expanding the discussion 

7

 OMB Circular A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget, Section 220.
Page 8 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

of how programs—also known as “units of analysis”—are determined, 

including recognizing the trade-offs, implications, or both of such 

determinations. 

As part of the President’s budget preparation, the PART clearly must serve 

the President’s interests. However, experience suggests that efforts to 

integrate budget and performance are promoted when Congress and other 

key stakeholders have confidence in the credibility of the analysis and the 

process used. It is unlikely that the broad range of players whose input is 

critical to decisions will use performance information unless they believe it 

is relevant, credible, reliable, and reflective of a consensus about 

performance goals among a community of interested parties. Similarly, the 

measures used to demonstrate progress toward a goal, no matter how 

worthwhile, cannot appear to serve a single set of interests without 

potentially discouraging use of this information by others. We therefore 

recommend that OMB attempt to build on the strengths of GPRA and PART 

by seeking to communicate early in the PART process with congressional 

appropriators and authorizers about what performance issues and 

information are most important to them in evaluating programs. 

Furthermore, while Congress has a number of opportunities to provide its 

perspective on performance issues and goals through its authorization, 

oversight, and appropriations processes, we suggest that Congress 

consider the need for a more structured approach for sharing with the 

executive branch its perspective on governmentwide performance matters, 

including its views on performance goals and outcomes for key programs 

and the oversight agenda. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, OMB generally agreed with our 

findings, conclusions, and recommendations. OMB outlined actions it is 

taking to address many of our 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. OMB also suggested some 

technical changes throughout the report that we have incorporated as 

appropriate. OMB’s comments appear in appendix IV. We also received 

technical comments on excerpts of the draft provided to the Departments 

of the Interior, Energy, and Health and Human Services, which are 

incorporated as appropriate.
Page 9 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Background The current administration has taken several steps to strengthen and 

further performance-resource linkages for which GPRA laid the 

groundwork. Central to the budget and performance integration initiative, 

the PART is meant to strengthen the process for assessing the effectiveness 

of programs by making that process more robust, transparent, and 

systematic. As noted above, the PART is a series of diagnostic questions 

designed to provide a consistent approach to rating federal programs. (See 

app. II for a reproduction of the PART.) Drawing on available performance 

and evaluation information, the questionnaire attempts to determine the 

strengths and weaknesses of federal programs with a particular focus on 

individual program results. The PART asks, for example, whether a 

program’s long-term goals are specific, ambitious, and focused on 

outcomes, and whether annual goals demonstrate progress toward 

achieving long-term goals. It is designed to be evidence based, drawing on a 

wide array of information, including authorizing legislation, GPRA strategic 

plans and performance plans and reports, financial statements, inspector 

general and GAO reports, and independent program evaluations. PART 

questions are divided into four sections; each section is given a specific 

weight in determining the final numerical rating for a program. Table 1 

shows an overview of the four PART sections and the weights OMB 

assigned.

Table 1: Overview of Sections of PART Questions

Source: GAO analysis of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and Management Assessments

(Washington, D.C.: February 2003).

Section Description Weight

I. Program Purpose and 

Design

To assess whether

• the purpose is clear, and

• the program design makes sense.

20%

II. Strategic Planning To assess whether the agency sets valid 

programmatic

• annual goals, and

• long-term goals.

10%

III. Program Management To rate agency management of the program, 

including 

• financial oversight, and

• program improvement efforts.

20%

IV. Program 

Results/Accountability

To rate program performance on goals reviewed in

• the strategic planning section, and

• through other evaluations.

50%
Page 10 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

In addition, each PART program is assessed according to one of seven 

approaches to service delivery. Table 2 provides an overview of these 

program types and the number and percentage of programs covered by 

each type in the fiscal year 2004 President’s Budget performance 

assessments.

Table 2: Overview of PART Program Types

Source: GAO summary and analysis of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and Management 

Assessments (Washington, D.C.: February 2003).

a

Percentages do not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

b

OMB noted that in rare cases, drawing questions from two of the seven PART program types—that is, 

creation of a “mixed” program type—yields a more informative assessment. 

Program type Description

Number/percentage 

of programsa

1. Direct federal Programs in which support and services are 

provided primarily by federal employees.

67 

29%

2. Block/formula 

grant

Programs that distribute funds to state, local, 

and tribal governments and other entities by 

formula or block grant.

41

18%

3. Competitive 

grant

Programs that distribute funds to state, local, 

and tribal governments, organizations, 

individuals, and other entities through a 

competitive process.

37

16%

4. Capital assets 

and service 

acquisition

Programs in which the primary means to 

achieve goals is the development and 

acquisition of capital assets (such as land, 

structures, equipment, and intellectual 

property) or the purchase of services (such 

as maintenance and information technology) 

from a commercial source.

34

15%

5. Research and 

development

Programs that focus on creating knowledge 

or applying it toward the creation of systems, 

devices, methods, materials, or technologies.

32

14%

6. RegulatorybasedPrograms that employ regulatory action to 

achieve program and agency goals through 

rule making that implements, interprets, or 

prescribes law or policy, or describes 

procedure or practice requirements. These 

programs issue significant regulations, which 

are subject to OMB review.

15

6%

7. Credit Programs that provide support through 

loans, loan guarantees, and direct credit.

4

2%

8. Mixedb Programs that contain elements of different 

program types.

4

2%
Page 11 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

During the fiscal year 2004 budget cycle, OMB applied the PART to 234 

programs (about 20 percent of the fiscal year 2004 President’s Budget 

request to Congress8

), and gave each program one of four overall ratings: 

(1) “effective,” (2) “moderately effective,” (3) “adequate,” or (4) 

“ineffective” based on program design, strategic planning, management, 

and results. A fifth rating, “results not demonstrated,” was given—

independent of a program’s numerical score—if OMB decided that a 

program’s performance information, performance measures, or both were 

insufficient or inadequate. The administration plans to assess an additional 

20 percent of the budget each year until the entire executive branch has 

been reviewed. For more information on the development of the PART, see 

appendix III.

OMB Used the PART to 

Systematically Assess 

Program Performance 

and Make Results 

Known, but Follow-up 

on PART 

Recommendations Is 

Uncertain 

The PART clarified OMB’s use of performance information in its budget 

decision-making process and stimulated new interest in budget and 

performance integration. OMB generally proposed budget increases for 

programs that received ratings of “effective” or “moderately effective” and 

decreased funding requests for those programs that were rated 

“ineffective,” but there were clear exceptions. Moreover, the more 

important role of the PART was not in making resource decisions but in its 

support for recommendations to improve program design, assessment, and 

management. OMB’s ability to use the PART to identify and address future 

program improvements and measure progress—a major purpose of the 

PART—is predicated on its ability to oversee the implementation of PART 

recommendations. However, it is not clear that OMB has a centralized 

system to oversee the implementation of such recommendations or 

evaluate their effectiveness. 

The PART Made Budget and 

Performance Integration at 

OMB More Transparent

The PART helped structure and discipline the use of performance 

information in the budget process and made the use of such information 

more transparent throughout the executive branch. According to OMB 

senior officials and many of the examiners and branch chiefs, the PART 

lent structure to a process that had previously been informal and gave OMB 

staff a systematic way of asking performance-related questions. Both 

8

 OMB defined 20 percent of the budget as either 20 percent of programs or their funding 

levels so long as all programs are assessed over the 5-year cycle for fiscal years 2004 through 

2008 budget requests. 
Page 12 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

agency and OMB staff noted that this helped ensure that OMB staff with 

varying levels of experience focused on the same issues, fostering a more 

disciplined approach to discussing performance within OMB and with 

agencies. Agency officials told us that by encouraging more 

communication between departments and OMB, the PART helps illuminate 

both how OMB makes budget decisions and how OMB staff think about 

program management. The PART also provided a framework for raising 

performance issues during the OMB Director’s Reviews. OMB managers 

and staff reported that it led to richer discussions on what a program 

should be achieving, whether the program was performing effectively, and 

how program performance could be improved. 

Agencies also reported that the PART process expanded the dialogue 

between program, planning, and budget staffs, and stimulated interest in 

budget and performance integration. Several agency officials stated that 

the PART worksheets were a catalyst for bringing staffs together since 

none could fully respond to the questionnaire alone. OMB and agency 

officials agreed that the PART led to more interactions between OMB and 

agency program and planning staff and, in turn, increased program 

managers’ awareness of and involvement in the budget process. According 

to OMB and several agency officials, the PART process—that is, responding 

to the PART questionnaire—involved staff outside of the performance 

management area. Additionally, both agency and OMB officials said that 

the attention given to programs that were not routinely reviewed was a 

positive benefit of the PART process.

Use of Performance 

Information Was Evident in 

OMB’s Recommendations

OMB senior officials told us that one of the PART’s most notable impacts 

was its ability to highlight OMB’s recommended changes in program 

management and design. As shown in figure 1, we found that 82 percent of 

PART recommendations addressed program assessment, design, and 

management issues; only 18 percent of the recommendations had a direct 

link to funding matters.9

9

 The 234 programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 contained a total of 612 recommendations.
Page 13 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Figure 1: Fiscal Year 2004 PART Recommendations 

The majority of recommendations relate to changes that go well beyond 

funding consideration for one budget cycle. For example, OMB and HHS 

officials agree that the Foster Care program as it is currently designed does 

not provide appropriate incentives for the permanent placement of 

children; the program financially rewards states for keeping children in 

foster care instead of the original intent of providing temporary, safe, and 

appropriate homes for abused or neglected children until children can be 

returned to their families or other permanent arrangements can be made. 

The PART assessment provided support for OMB’s recommendation that 

legislation be introduced that would create an option for states to 

participate in an alternate financing program that would “better meet the 

needs of each state’s foster care population.” 

Performance information included in the PART for the Department of 

Labor’s (DOL) Community Service Employment for Older Americans 

program helped to shape OMB’s recommendation to increase competition 

for the grants. OMB concluded that although the Older Americans Act of 

2000 amendments10 authorize competition for grants in cases in which 

grantees repeatedly fail to perform, the programs’ 10 national grantees 

10 Pub. L. No. 106-501 (2000).
Page 14 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

have historically been the sole recipients of grant funds regardless of 

performance. OMB recommended that DOL award national grants 

competitively to strengthen service delivery and open the door to new 

grantees.

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. As seen in figure 2, we found 

that PART scores were generally positively related to proposed funding 

changes in discretionary programs but not in a mechanistic way. In other 

words, PART scores did not automatically determine funding changes. 

OMB proposed funding increases for most of the programs rated “effective” 

or “moderately effective” and proposed funding decreases for most of the 

programs rated “ineffective,” but there were clear exceptions. Programs 

rated as “results not demonstrated”—which reflected a range of PART 

scores—had mixed results.

Figure 2: Number of Discretionary PART Programs by Rating and Funding Result, Fiscal Years 2003-2004

Note: Discretionary programs refer to those programs with budgetary resources provided in 

appropriation acts. Because Congress controls spending for mandatory programs—generally 

entitlement programs such as food stamps, Medicare, and veterans’ pensions—indirectly rather than 

directly through the appropriations process, we excluded them from our analysis. Of the 234 programs, 

we could not classify 11 as being either predominantly mandatory or discretionary; these programs are 

excluded from our analysis as well, and are listed in appendix I.
Page 15 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

A large portion of the variability in proposed budget changes could not be 

explained by the quantitative measures reported by the PART. Regressions 

of PART scores never explained more than about 15 percent of the 

proposed budget changes. For only the one-third of discretionary programs 

with the smallest budgets, we found that the composite PART scores had a 

modest but statistically significant effect on proposed budget changes 

(measured in percentage change) between fiscal years 2003 and 2004. For a 

fuller discussion of the statistical methods used, see appendix I.

The relationship between performance levels and budget decisions was not 

one-dimensional. For example, OMB rated the Department of Defense’s 

Basic Research program as “effective,” but recommended a reduction in 

congressionally earmarked projects that it stated did not meet the 

program's merit review process. OMB also recommended reducing funding 

for DOE’s International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation 

program (rated “effective”) because difficulties in obtaining international 

agreements had resulted in the availability of sufficient unobligated 

balances11 to make new funding unnecessary. However, OMB sometimes 

proposed funding increases for programs that were rated “ineffective” to 

implement improvement plans that had been developed, such as the 

Internal Revenue Service’s new Earned Income Tax Credit compliance 

initiatives and DOE’s revised environmental cleanup plans for its 

Environmental Management (Cleanup) program. 

Capacity Issues Could 

Affect OMB’s Ability to Use 

the PART to Drive Program 

Improvements 

OMB has said that a major purpose of the PART is to focus on program 

improvements and measure progress. Effectively implementing PART 

recommendations aimed at program improvements will require sustained 

attention and sufficient oversight of agencies to ensure that the 

recommendations are producing desirable results. However, each year, the 

number of recommendations from previous years’ evaluations will grow. 

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

programs annually such that all programs would eventually be reviewed 

over a 5-year period. OMB encouraged its RMOs to consider a variety of 

factors in selecting programs for the fiscal year 2004 PART assessments, 

including continuing presidential initiatives and programs up for 

reauthorization. Strengthening the focus on selecting related programs for 

review in a given year would enable decision makers to analyze the relative 

11 Unobligated balances are defined as portions of available budget authority that the agency 

has not set aside to cover current legal liabilities.
Page 16 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

efficacy of similar programs in meeting common or similar outcomes. As 

our work has shown, unfocused and uncoordinated programs waste scarce 

funds, confuse and frustrate program customers, and limit overall program 

effectiveness. Therefore it is prudent to highlight crosscutting program 

efforts and clearly relate and address the contributions of alternative 

federal strategies toward meeting similar goals. 

Although OMB has created a template for agencies to report on the status 

of their recommendations and has reported that agencies are implementing 

their PART recommendations, OMB has no central system for monitoring 

agency progress or evaluating the effectiveness of changes. While RMOs 

are responsible for overseeing agency progress, OMB senior managers will 

not have a comprehensive governmentwide picture of progress on the 

implementation of PART recommendations, nor will they have a complete 

picture of OMB’s workload in this area. As OMB has recognized, following 

through on the recommendations is essential for improving program 

performance and ensuring accountability.

Senior OMB managers readily recognized the increased workload the PART 

placed on examiners—in one public forum we attended, a senior OMB 

official described many examiners as being very concerned about the 

additional workload. However, OMB expects the workload to decline as 

OMB and agency staff become more familiar with the PART tool and 

process, and as issues with the timing of the PART reviews are resolved. 

Agency officials told us that originally, there was no formal guidance for 

reassessing PART programs—it varied by RMO. When issued, OMB’s 

formal PART guidance limited reassessments to (1) updating the 

status/implementation of recommendations from the fiscal year 2004 PART 

and (2) revisiting specific questions for which new evidence exists. OMB 

expected that in most reassessments, only those questions in which change 

could be demonstrated would be “reopened.” OMB officials acknowledged 

that this formal guidance is at least partly due to resource constraints. 

OMB staff were divided on whether the PART assessments made an 

appreciable difference in time spent on its budget review process. Many of 

those we spoke with told us that their workloads during the traditional 

budget season have always been heavy and that PART did not add 

significantly to their work, especially since the PART generally formalized a 

process already taking place. Those who did acknowledge workload 

concerns said that they were surprised at the amount of time it was taking 

to reassess programs. In fact, more than one OMB official told us that 
Page 17 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

reassessing programs was taking almost as long as brand-new assessments, 

despite the fact that OMB scaled back the scope of these reassessments.

Despite OMB’s 

Considerable Efforts to 

Create a Credible 

Evaluation Tool, PART 

Assessments Require 

Judgment and Were 

Constrained by Data 

Limitations

OMB went to great lengths to encourage consistent application of the PART 

in the evaluation of government programs, including pilot testing the 

instrument, issuing detailed guidance, and conducting consistency reviews. 

However, while the instrument can undoubtedly be improved, any tool that 

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

government will always require OMB staff to exercise interpretation and 

judgment. Providing flexibility to assess multidimensional programs with 

multiple purposes and impacts has led to a reliance on OMB staff 

judgments to apply general principles to specific cases. Accordingly, 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 results also constrained OMB’s ability to use the 

PART to rate programs’ effectiveness.

Inherent Performance 

Measurement Challenges 

Make It Difficult to 

Meaningfully Interpret a 

Bottom-Line Rating

OMB published a single, bottom-line rating for the PART results as well as 

individual section scores, which 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 did poorly in being able to show results (39 

percent) and in program management (46 percent). Thus, the individual 

section ratings provided a better understanding of areas needing 

improvement than the overall rating alone. Bottom-line ratings inevitably 

force choices on what best exemplifies a program’s mission—even when a 

program has multiple goals—and encourages a determination of the 

effectiveness of the program even when performance data are unavailable, 

the quality of those data is uneven, or they convey a mixed message on 

performance. 
Page 18 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Many of the outcomes for which federal programs are responsible are part 

of a broader effort involving federal, state, local, nonprofit, and private 

partners. We have previously reported that it is often difficult to isolate a 

particular program’s contribution to an outcome and especially so when it 

involves third parties.12 This was reinforced by the results of the fiscal year 

2004 PART reviews. One of the patterns that OMB identified in its ratings 

was that grant programs received lower than average ratings. To OMB this 

suggested the need for greater effort by agencies to make grantees 

accountable for achieving overall program results. However, grant 

structure and design play a role in how federal agencies are able to hold 

third parties responsible and complicate the process of identifying the 

individual contributions of a federal program with multiple partners. In 

particular, block grants present implementation challenges, especially in 

those instances in which national goals are not compatible with state and 

local priorities. 

OMB Employed Numerous 

Tools and Techniques to 

Promote and Improve 

Consistent Application of 

the PART

OMB went to great lengths to encourage consistent application of the PART 

in the evaluation of government programs. These efforts included (1) 

testing the PART in selected agencies before use in the fiscal year 2004 

assessment, (2) issuing detailed guidance and worksheets for use by PART 

teams, (3) making the Performance Evaluation Team (PET) available to 

answer PART implementation questions, (4) establishing an Interagency 

Review Panel (IRP) to review consistency of PART evaluations, and (5) 

making improvements to the fiscal year 2005 process and guidance based 

upon the fiscal year 2004 experience.

OMB conducted a pilot test of the PART and released a draft of the PART 

questionnaire for public comment prior to its use for the fiscal year 2004 

budget cycle. During Spring Review in 2002, OMB and agency staff piloted 

the draft PART on 67 programs. The PART was also shared with and 

commented on by the Performance Measurement Advisory Council and 

other external groups. According to OMB, the results of the Spring Review 

and feedback from external groups were used to revise the draft version of 

the PART to lessen subjectivity and increase the consistency of reviews. 

12 See GAO-03-595T and U.S. General Accounting Office, Managing for Results: Efforts to 

Strengthen the Link Between Resources and Results at the Administration for Children 

and Families, GAO-03-9 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 10, 2002).
Page 19 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

OMB issued detailed guidance to help OMB and agency staff consistently 

apply the PART and created electronic “templates” or worksheets to aid in 

completing PART assessments. This guidance explains the purpose of each 

question and describes the evidence required to support a “yes” or “no” 

answer. In order to account for different types of programs, several 

questions tailored to the seven program types were added to the PART 

(primarily in Section III—Program Management). While the PART guidance 

cannot be expected to cover every situation, the instructions established 

general standards for PART evaluations.

PET addressed in “real time” questions and issues that OMB staff that were 

completing the PART evaluations repeatedly raised. PET consisted of 

examiners drawn from across the OMB organization representing a variety 

of programmatic knowledge and experiences. It served as a sounding 

board for OMB staff and a source for sharing experiences, issues, and 

useful approaches and also provided training to OMB and agency staff on 

the process. For example, in one OMB branch, staff were grappling with 

how to apply the PART to a set of block grants. They went through the 

instrument with the PET member from their RMO and continued to consult 

with that individual throughout the process.

OMB also formed IRP, which consisted of both OMB and agency officials, 

to conduct a consistency check of the PART reviews and to review formal 

appeals of the process or results for particular questions. During the fiscal 

year 2004 budget process, IRP conducted a consistency review of 10 

percent of the PART evaluations using a subset of the PART questions that 

OMB staff identified as being the most subjective or difficult to interpret. 

IRP also reviewed formal agency appeals to determine whether there was 

consistent treatment of similar situations.

As an Evaluation Tool, the 

PART Has Weaknesses in Its 

Design and, as a Result, Its 

Implementation

Despite the considerable time and effort OMB has devoted to promoting 

consistent application of the PART, difficulties both with the tool itself 

(such as subjective terminology and a restrictive yes/no format) and with 

implementing the tool (including inconsistencies in defining acceptable 

measures and contradictory answers to “pairs” of related questions) 

aggravated the general performance measurement challenges described 

earlier.
Page 20 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Subjective Terms and a 

Restrictive Format 

Contributed to 

Subjective and 

Inconsistent 

Responses

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. Some agency officials claimed that having multiple 

statutory goals disadvantaged their programs. Without further guidance, 

subjective terminology can influence program ratings by permitting OMB 

staff’s views about a program’s purpose to affect assessments of the 

program’s design and achievements. 

Although OMB employed a yes/no format for the PART because OMB 

believes it aided standardization, the format resulted in oversimplified 

answers to some questions. OMB received comments on the yes/no format 

in conducting the PART pilot. Some parties liked the certainty and forced 

choice of yes/no. Others felt the format did not adequately distinguish 

between the performance of various programs, especially in the results 

section (originally in the yes/no format). In response to these concerns, 

OMB revised the PART in the spring of 2002 to include four response 

choices in the results section (adding “small extent” and “large extent” to 

the original two choices “yes” and “no”), while retaining the dichotomous 

yes/no format in the other three sections. OMB acknowledged that a “yes” 

response should be definite and reflect a very high standard of 

performance, and that it would more likely be difficult to justify a “yes” 

answer than a “no” answer. Nonetheless, 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.

Moreover, the yes/no format was particularly troublesome for questions 

containing multiple criteria for a “yes” answer. As discussed previously, we 

conducted an in-depth analysis of PART assessments for 28 related 

programs in nine clusters and compared the responses to related questions. 

That analysis showed six 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, Section II, Question 1, asks, “Does the program have a limited 

number of specific, ambitious, long-term performance goals that focus on 

outcomes and meaningfully reflect the purpose of the program?” The PART 

defines successful long-term goals by multiple, distinct characteristics 
Page 21 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

(program has long-term goals, time frames by which the goals are to be 

achieved, etc.), but does not clarify whether a program can receive a “yes” 

if each of the characteristics is met, or if most of the characteristics are 

met. This contributed to a number of inconsistencies across program 

reviews. For example, OMB judged DOI’s Water Reuse and Recycling 

program “no” on this question, 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. In another example, OMB accepted DOD’s recently 

established long-term strategic goals for medical training and provision of 

health care even though it did not yet have measures or targets for those 

goals. By breaking out targets and ambitious time frames separately from 

the question of annual goals, agencies have an opportunity to get credit for 

progress made.

There Were 

Inconsistencies in 

Defining Acceptable 

Measures and in 

Logically Responding 

to Question “Pairs”

In particular, our analysis of the nine program clusters revealed three 

instances in which OMB staff inconsistently defined appropriate 

measures—outcome versus output—for programs. Officials also told us 

that OMB staff used different standards to define measures as outcome 

oriented. This may reflect, in part, the complexity of and relationship 

between expected program benefits. Outcomes are generally defined as the 

results of outputs—products and services—delivered by a program. But in 

some programs, long-term outcomes are expected to occur over time 

through multiple steps. In these cases, short-term outcomes—immediate 

changes in knowledge and awareness—might be expected to lead to 

intermediate outcomes—behavioral changes in the future—and eventually 

result in long-term outcomes—benefits to the public. 

In the employment and training area, OMB accepted short-term outcomes, 

such as obtaining high school diplomas or employment, as a proxy for longterm goals for the HHS Refugee Assistance program, which aims to help 

refugees attain economic self-sufficiency as soon as possible after they 

arrive. 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. 
Page 22 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Similarly, OMB gave credit for output measures of claims processing (time, 

accuracy, and productivity) as a proxy for long-term goals for the Social 

Security Administration’s Disability Insurance program, but did not accept 

the same output measures for the Veterans Disability Compensation 

program. OMB took steps to address this issue for fiscal year 2005. 

We also found that three “question pairs” on the PART worksheets are 

linked, yet in two of the three “pairs,” a disconnect appeared in how OMB 

staff responded to these questions for a given program.13 For example, 29 of 

the 90 programs (32 percent) judged as lacking “independent and quality 

evaluations of sufficient scope conducted on a regular basis” (Section II, 

Question 5) were also judged as having “independent and quality 

evaluations that indicated the program is effective and achieving results” 

(Section IV, Question 5). There is a logical inconsistency in these two 

responses. In another instance, there was no linkage between the questions 

that examine whether a program has annual goals that demonstrate 

progress toward achieving long-term goals and whether the program 

actually achieves its annual goals. For example, 15 of the 75 programs (20 

percent) judged not to have adequate annual performance goals (Section II, 

Question 2) were nevertheless credited for having made progress on their 

annual performance goals (Section IV, Question 2). However, the guidance 

for the latter question clearly indicates that a program must receive a “no” 

if it received a “no” on the existence of annual goals (Section II, Question 

2). It seems that some raters held programs to a higher standard for the 

quality of goals than for progress on them. 

13 In the third question pair, a question in the planning section asks about whether the 

program has long-term goals, and a question in the results section asks whether the agency 

has made progress in achieving the program’s long-term goals. Yet, in 6 of the 115 programs 

(5 percent) judged not to have adequate long-term goals, credit was given for making 

progress on their long-term goals even though the guidance again clearly states that a 

program must receive a “no” if the program received a “no” on the existence of long-term 

outcome goals. 
Page 23 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

The Lack of Performance 

Information Creates 

Challenges in Effectively 

Measuring Program 

Performance

According to OMB, 115 out of 234 programs (49 percent) lacked “specific, 

ambitious, long-term performance goals that focus on outcomes” (Section 

II, Question 1). In addition, OMB found that 90 out of 234 programs (38 

percent) lacked sufficient “independent, quality evaluations” (Section II, 

Question 5). While the validity of these assessments may be subject to 

interpretation and debate, our previous work14 has raised concerns about 

the capacity of federal agencies to produce evaluations of program 

effectiveness. 

The lack of evaluations may in part be driven by how OMB defined an 

“independent and quality evaluation.” To be independent, nonbiased parties 

with no conflict of interest would conduct the evaluation, but agency 

officials felt that OMB staff started from the default position that agencysponsored evaluations are, by definition, biased. However, our detailed 

review of 28 PART worksheets found only 7 instances in which OMB 

explicitly noted its rejection of evaluations: 1 for being too old, 3 for not 

being independent (of the 3, 1 was an internal agency review and 2 were 

conducted by industry groups), and the remaining 3 for not assessing 

program results. OMB officials have acknowledged that this issue was a 

point of friction with agencies and that beyond GAO, inspectors general, 

and other government reports that were automatically presumed to be 

independent, the independence standard was considered on a case-by-case 

basis. In these case-by-case situations, OMB staff told us that they looked 

for some degree of detachment and objectivity in the evaluations. For 

example, in the case of one DOE-sponsored evaluation, the OMB examiner 

attended the meetings of the review group that conducted the evaluation in 

order to see firsthand what sorts of questions the committee posed to the 

department officials. In OMB’s estimation, there was clear independence. 

While OMB changed the fiscal year 2005 guidance to recognize evaluations 

contracted out to third parties and agency program evaluation offices as 

possibly being sufficiently independent, the new guidance generally 

prohibits evaluations conducted by the program itself from being 

considered “independent.” 

Other reasons evaluation data may be limited include (1) constraints on 

federal agencies’ ability to influence program outcomes and reliance on 

states and others for data for programs for which responsibility has 

14 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 24 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

devolved to the states and (2) the lack of a statutory mandate or dedicated 

funds for evaluation, which agency officials told us can hamper efforts to 

conduct studies or to improve administrative data collection.

As we have previously noted, program evaluations can take many forms 

and agencies may obtain evaluations in a variety of ways. 15 Some 

evaluations simply analyze routinely collected program administrative 

data; others involve special surveys. The type of evaluation can greatly 

affect evaluation cost. Net impact evaluations compare outcomes for 

program participants to those of a randomly assigned control group and are 

designed for situations in which external factors are also known to 

influence those outcomes. However, the adequacy of an evaluation design 

can only be determined relative to the circumstances of the program being 

evaluated. In addition, agencies can obtain evaluations by having program 

or other agency staff collect and analyze the data, by conducting the work 

jointly with program partners (such as state agencies), or by hiring contract 

firms to do so. Our survey of 81 federal agency offices conducting 

evaluations in 1995 of program results found they were most commonly 

located in administrative offices at a major subdivision level or in program 

offices (43 and 30 percent, respectively). Overall, they reported conducting 

51 percent of their studies in-house, while 34 percent were contracted out. 

Depending on the sensitivity of the study questions, agencies can conduct 

credible internal evaluations by adopting procedures to ensure the 

reliability and validity of data collection and analysis. 

15 GAO/GGD-98-53. 
Page 25 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Disagreements on 

Performance 

Information Led to 

Creation of a “Results 

Not Demonstrated” 

Category

During the PART process OMB created an additional rating category, 

“results not demonstrated,” which was applied to programs regardless of 

their score if OMB decided that one or both of two conditions pertained: 

(1) OMB and the agency could not reach agreement on long-term and 

annual performance measures and (2) there was inadequate performance 

information. Almost 50 percent of the 234 programs assessed for fiscal year 

2004 received this rating of “results not demonstrated,” ranging from highscoring programs such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission (83) 

to low-scoring programs such as the Department of Veterans Affairs 

Disability Compensation program (15). OMB officials said that this rating 

was given to programs when agreement could not be reached on long-term 

and annual performance measures and was applied regardless of the 

program’s PART score. Our own review found that OMB generally assigned 

the “results not demonstrated” rating as described above.16

It is important for users of the PART information to interpret the “results 

not demonstrated” designation as “unknown effectiveness” rather than as 

meaning the program is “ineffective.” Having evidence of poor results is not 

the same as lacking evidence of effectiveness. Because the PART guidance 

sets very high standards for obtaining a “yes,” a “no” answer can mean 

either that a program did not meet the standards, or that there is no 

evidence on whether it met the standards. In some readily measured areas, 

lack of evidence of an action may indicate that the standard probably was 

not met. However, because effectiveness is often not readily observed, lack 

of evidence on program effectiveness cannot be automatically interpreted 

as meaning that a program is ineffective. Furthermore, an agency might 

have results for goals established under GPRA, but if OMB and the agency 

could not reach agreement on new or revised goals or measures, then OMB 

gave a program the rating “results not demonstrated.” 

16 However, we found 8 cases (out of 118) programs that were rated as “results not 

demonstrated” despite having both annual and long-term performance goals and evidence 

that these goals were being met.
Page 26 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Changes to the PART and 

Related Guidance for Fiscal 

Year 2005 Are Meant to 

Address Previously 

Identified Problems

OMB, recognizing many of the issues we have just discussed, made 

modifications to the PART instrument and guidance in time for the fiscal 

year 2005 process. OMB said these changes were based upon lessons 

learned during the fiscal year 2004 process and input from a variety of 

sources, such as PET, IRP, and agency officials, although we were unable to 

determine which changes resulted from which recommendations. Although 

the PART as used for fiscal year 2005 is very similar to that for fiscal year 

2004, several questions were added, dropped, merged with other questions, 

or divided into two questions. For example, a research and development 

question used in the fiscal year 2004 PART that received “not applicable” 

answers in 13 out of the 32 cases in which it was applied was dropped from 

the fiscal year 2005 PART. According to OMB officials, several of the 

multicriteria questions were split into separate questions in order to reduce 

inconsistency, as described earlier in this report. Appendix II provides 

more complete information on the guidance changes between fiscal years 

2004 and 2005. To complement the fiscal year 2005 PART guidance and 

offer strategies for addressing common performance measurement 

challenges, many of which were encountered during the fiscal year 2004 

process, OMB released a separate document, titled Performance 

Measurement Challenges and Strategies, which was the result of a 

workshop in which agencies participated and identified measurement 

challenges and shared best practices and possible work-arounds. 

Instead of reestablishing IRP (which included both agency and OMB 

representatives) for the fiscal year 2005 process, OMB officials told us that 

PET (which included only OMB representatives) would conduct a 

consistency review of 25 percent of all PART evaluations, with at least one 

consistency check per OMB branch. OMB also told us that it has asked the 

National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to review PET’s 

consistency review for the fiscal year 2005 process; the scope and results of 

that review were not available to us during our audit work.17 OMB senior 

officials cited resources, timing, and the differing needs of the fiscal year 

2004 and 2005 PART processes as reasons for dropping the IRP review. The 

absence of agency participation in this important phase of the PART could 

hamper ensuring crucial transparency and credibility. 

17 Because our audit focused on the fiscal year 2004 PART process, our engagement was not 

limited by OMB’s decision to not share its reasoning for shifting the consistency review from 

IRP to PET or our lack of access to the NAPA review.
Page 27 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

The Fiscal Year 2004 

PART Process Was a 

Parallel, Competing 

Approach to GPRA’s 

Performance 

Management 

Framework

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

preparation and review process; as such, the goals and measures used in 

the PART must meet OMB’s needs. However, 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. OMB’s desire to 

collect performance data that better align with budget decision units means 

that the fiscal year 2004 PART process was a parallel competing structure 

to the GPRA framework. Although OMB acknowledges that GPRA was the 

starting point for the PART, as we explain below, the emphasis is shifting 

such that over time the performance measures developed for the PART and 

used in the budget process may come to drive agencies’ strategic planning 

processes. 

Agencies told us that in some cases, OMB is replacing PART goals and 

measures for those of GPRA. Effective for fiscal year 2005, OMB’s Circular 

A-11 guidance states that performance budgets are to replace GPRA’s 

annual performance plans. Agencies see the change as detrimental to 

planning and reporting under GPRA and as a resource drain since they have

to respond to both GPRA and PART requirements. Some agency officials 

told us that although the PART can stimulate discussion on programspecific performance measurement issues, it is not a substitute for GPRA’s 

outcome-oriented, strategic look at thematic goals and departmentwide 

program comparisons. Moreover, while the PART does not eliminate the 

departmental strategic plans created under GPRA, many OMB and agency 

officials told us that the PART is being used to shape the strategic plans.
Page 28 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

OMB’s Efforts to Link 

Performance Information 

with the Budget Often 

Conflict with Agencies’ 

GPRA Planning Efforts 

OMB guidance and officials made clear that GPRA goals, measures, and 

reports needed to be modified to provide decision makers with programspecific, outcome-based performance data that better aligned with the 

budget presentation in the President’s Budget. According to OMB, such 

changes were needed because performance reporting under GPRA had 

evolved into a process separate from budget decision making, with GPRA 

plans organized at too high a level to be meaningful for program-level 

budget analysis and management review. Furthermore, according to OMB 

officials, GPRA plans had too many performance measures, which made it 

difficult to determine an agency’s priorities. However, as some officials 

pointed out, the cumulative effect of adding new PART measures to GPRA 

plans may actually increase the number of measures overall; both agency 

and OMB officials recognize that this is contrary to goals issued by an OMB 

official previously responsible for the PART, indicating his desire to reduce 

the number of GPRA measures by at least 25 percent in at least 70 percent 

of federal departments.18 As a result of these sometimes-conflicting 

perspectives, agency officials said that responding to both PART and GPRA 

requirements increased their workloads and was a drain on staff resources. 

OMB’s most recent Circular A-11 guidance clearly requires that each 

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

should replace the annual GPRA performance plan.19 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 the PART, the performance budget will also 

include performance goals for agency programs that have not yet been 

assessed using the PART. 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 significantly, 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 the PART and unnecessary measures should be deleted 

from GPRA plans. 

18 Memorandum to the President’s Management Council, “Where We’d Be Proud To Be,” May 

21, 2003.

19 OMB Circular A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget.
Page 29 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

OMB’s interest in developing more useful program goals is further evident 

in its PART recommendations. Almost half of the fiscal year 2004 PART 

recommendations related to performance assessment—developing 

outcome goals and measures; cost or efficiency measures; and increasing 

the tracking/monitoring of data, improving the tracking/monitoring of data, 

or both. GPRA was generally the starting point for PART discussions about 

goals and measures, and many agency officials told us that OMB used the 

PART to modify agencies’ existing GPRA goals and measures. Agency 

officials reported that the discussions about goals and measures were one 

of the main areas of contention during the PART process. At the same time, 

agency officials acknowledged that (1) sometimes OMB staff accepted 

current GPRA measures and (2) sometimes the new PART measures and 

goals were improvements over the old GPRA measures—the PART 

measures were more aggressive, more outcome-oriented, more targeted, or 

all of the above.

Defining a “Unit of 

Analysis” That Is 

Useful for ProgramLevel Budget Analysis 

and Agency Planning 

Purposes Presents 

Challenges 

The appropriate unit of analysis or “program” is not always obvious. What 

OMB determined was useful for a PART assessment did not necessarily 

match agency organization or planning elements. Although the units of 

analysis varied across the PART assessments, OMB’s guidance stated that 

they should be linked to a recognized funding level in the budget. In some 

cases, OMB aggregated separate programs for the purposes of the PART, 

while in other cases it disaggregated programs. Aggregating programs to tie 

them to discrete funding levels sometimes made it difficult to create a 

limited, but comprehensive, set of measures for programs with multiple 

missions. Disaggregating programs sometimes ignored the 

interdependence of programs by artificially isolating programs from the 

larger contexts in which they operate. Both contributed to the lack of 

available planning and performance information. For example, aggregating 

rural water supply projects as a single unit of analysis may have been a 

logical choice for reviewing related activities, but it created problems in 

identifying planning and performance information useful for the PART 

since these projects are separately administered. In another case, HHS 

officials told us that the PART program Substance Abuse Treatment 

Programs of Regional and National Significance is an amalgamation of 

activities funded in a single budget line, not an actual program. They said it 

was a challenge to make these activities look as if they functioned as a 

single program. 

Disaggregating a program too narrowly can create problems by distorting 

its relationship to other programs involved in achieving a common goal. 
Page 30 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

For example, agency officials described a homeless program in which 

outreach workers help homeless persons with emergency needs and refer 

them to other agencies for housing and needed services. They said that 

their OMB counterparts suggested that the program adopt long-term 

outcome measures indicating number of persons housed. Agency officials 

argued that chronically homeless people require many services and that 

this federal program often supports only some of the services needed at the 

initial stages of intervention. The federal program, therefore, could 

contribute to, but not be primarily responsible for, affecting late stages of 

the intervention process, like housing status.

These issues 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. In particular, 

agency officials are concerned with problems in trying to respond to both 

and overwhelmingly agreed that the PART required a large amount of 

agency resources to complete. Moreover, some agency officials said that 

the PART (a program-specific review) is not well suited to one of the key 

purposes of strategic plans—to convey agencywide, long-term goals and 

objectives for all major functions and operations. In addition, the time 

horizons are different for the two initiatives—PART assessments focus on 

program accomplishments to date while GPRA strategic planning is longterm and prospective in nature. 
Page 31 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Changes Made to GPRA in 

the PART Process Create 

Uncertainty About 

Opportunities for 

Substantive Input by 

Interested Parties and 

Congressional Stakeholders

As noted above, PART goals and measures must meet OMB’s needs, while 

GPRA is a broader process involving the development of strategic and 

performance goals and objectives to be reported in strategic and annual 

plans. As a phased reform, GPRA required development of the planning 

framework first, but also explicitly encouraged links to the budget.20 Our 

work has shown that under GPRA agencies have made significant 

progress.21 Additionally, GPRA requires agencies to consult with Congress 

and solicit the views of other stakeholders as they develop their strategic 

plans.22 We have previously reported23 that stakeholder involvement 

appears critical for getting consensus on goals and measures. 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 the PART and its process and the broader GPRA 

strategic planning process is still evolving. Some tension between the level 

of stakeholder involvement in the development of performance measures 

in the GPRA strategic planning process and the process of developing 

performance measures for the PART is inevitable. Compared to the 

relatively open-ended GPRA process any budget formulation process is 

likely to seem closed. An agency’s communication with stakeholders, 

including Congress, about goals and measures created or modified during 

the formulation of the President’s budget is likely to be less than during the 

development of the agency’s own strategic or performance plan. Since 

different stakeholders have different needs and no one set of goals and 

measures can serve all purposes, the PART can complement GPRA but 

should not replace it.

20 31 U.S.C. § 1115(a) (2003).

21 U.S. General Accounting Office, Managing for Results: Agency Progress in Linking 

Performance Plans With Budgets and Financial Statements, GAO-02-236 (Washington, 

D.C.: Jan. 4, 2002).

22 5 U.S.C. § 306(d) (2003).

23 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).
Page 32 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Although these tensions between the need for internal deliberations and 

broader consultations are inevitable, if the PART is to be accepted as a 

credible element in the development of the President’s budget proposal, 

congressional understanding and acceptance of the tool and its analysis 

will be important. In order for performance information to more fully 

inform resource allocations, decision makers must also feel comfortable 

with the appropriateness and accuracy of the performance information and 

measures associated with these goals. It is unlikely that decision makers 

will use performance information unless they believe it is credible and 

reliable and reflects a consensus about performance goals among a 

community of interested parties. 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. 

While it is still too soon to know whether OMB-directed measures will 

satisfy the needs of other stakeholders and GPRA’s broader planning 

purposes, several appropriations subcommittees have stated, in their 

appropriations hearings, the need to link the PART with congressional 

oversight. For example, the House Committee on Appropriations, 

Subcommittee on the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies 

notes that while it supports the PMA, the costs of initiatives associated 

with it have generally not been requested in annual budget justifications or 

through reprogramming procedures.24 The Subcommittee, therefore, has 

been unable to evaluate the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of these 

initiatives or to weigh the priority that these initiatives should receive as 

compared with ongoing programs funded in the Interior Appropriations 

bill. Similarly, the House Report on Treasury and Transportation 

Appropriations included a statement in support of the PART, but noted that 

the administration’s efforts must be linked with the oversight of Congress 

to maximize the utility of the PART process, and that if the administration 

treats as privileged or confidential the details of its rating process, it is less 

likely that Congress will use those results in deciding which programs to 

fund. Moreover, the Subcommittee said it expects OMB to involve the 

House and Senate Committees on Appropriations in the development of the 

PART ratings at all stages in the process.25

24 H.R. Rep. No. 108-195, p. 8 (2003).

25 H.R. Rep. No. 108-243, pp. 168-69 (2003).
Page 33 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

While 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, opportunities exist for Congress to 

more systematically articulate performance goals and outcomes for key 

programs of major concern and to allow for timely congressional input in 

the selection of the PART programs to be assessed.

Conclusions and 

General Observations

OMB, through its development and use of the PART, has more explicitly 

infused performance information into the budget formulation process; 

increased the attention paid to evaluation and 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 data quality and availability. 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. 

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

questions remain about whether it serves the needs of other key

stakeholders. The PART could be strengthened to enhance its credibility 

and prospects for sustainability by such actions as (1) improving agencies’ 

and OMB’s capacity to cope with the demands of the PART, (2) 

strengthening the PART guidance, (3) expanding the base of credible 

performance information by strategically focusing evaluation resources, 

(4) selecting programs for assessment to facilitate crosscutting 

comparisons and trade-offs, (5) broadening the dialogue with 

congressional stakeholders, and (6) articulating and implementing a 

complementary relationship between PART and GPRA. 

OMB’s ambitious schedule for assessing all federal programs by the fiscal 

year 2008 President’s Budget will require a tremendous commitment of 

OMB’s and agencies’ resources. Implementation of the PART 

recommendations will be a longer-term and potentially more significant 

result of the PART process than the scores and ratings. No less important 

will be OMB’s involvement both in encouraging agency progress and in 

signaling its continuing commitment to improving program management 

and results through the PART. OMB has created a template by which 
Page 34 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

agencies report on the status of the recommendations and left follow-up on 

the recommendations to each RMO. However, there is no single focal point 

for evaluating progress and the results of agency efforts governmentwide; 

without this it will be difficult for OMB to judge the efficacy of the PART 

and to know whether the increased workload and trade-offs made with 

other activities is a good investment of OMB and agency resources.

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

and transparently, but in practice, the tool requires OMB staff to use 

independent judgment in interpreting the guidance and in making yes or no 

decisions for what are often complex federal programs. These difficulties 

are compounded by poor or partial program performance data. Therefore, 

it is not surprising that we found inconsistencies in our analysis of the 

fiscal year 2004 PART assessments. Recognizing the inherent limitations of 

any tool to provide a single performance answer or judgment on complex 

federal programs with multiple goals, continued improvements in the PART 

guidance, with examples throughout, can nonetheless help encourage a 

higher level of consistency as well as transparency.

The PART requires more performance and evaluation information than 

agencies currently have, as demonstrated by the fact that OMB rated over 

50 percent of the programs for fiscal year 2004 as “results not 

demonstrated” because they “did not have adequate performance goals” or 

“had not yet collected data to provide evidence of results.” In the past, we 

too have noted limitations in the quality of agency performance and 

evaluation information and in agency capacity to produce rigorous 

evaluations of program effectiveness. Furthermore, our work has shown 

that few agencies deployed the rigorous research methods required to 

attribute changes in underlying outcomes to program activities. However, 

program evaluation information often requires large amounts of agency 

resources to produce, and the agency and OMB may not agree on what is 

important to measure, particularly when a set of measures cannot serve 

multiple purposes. Agreement on what are a department or agency’s 

critical, high-risk programs and how best to evaluate them could help 

leverage limited resources and help determine what are the most important 

program evaluation data to collect.

Federal programs are designed and implemented in dynamic environments 

where competing program priorities and stakeholders’ needs must be 

balanced continually and new needs must be addressed. GPRA is a broad 

legislative framework that was designed to be consultative with Congress 

and other stakeholders and allows for varying uses of performance 
Page 35 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

information, while the PART applies evaluation information to support 

decisions and program reviews during the executive budget formulation 

process. While the PART reflects the administration’s management 

principles and the priority given to using performance information in 

OMB’s decision-making process, its focus on program-level assessments 

cannot substitute for the inclusive, crosscutting strategic planning required 

by GPRA. Moreover, GPRA can anchor the review of programs by providing 

an overall strategic context for programs’ contributions toward agency 

goals. Although PART and GPRA serve different needs, a strategy for 

integrating the two could help strengthen both. 

Opportunities exist to develop a more strategic approach to the selection 

and prioritization of areas to be assessed 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 could not only help ration scarce analytic resources but could 

also 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.

As part of the President’s budget preparation, the PART clearly must serve 

the President’s interests. However, it is unlikely that the broad range of 

actors whose input is critical to decisions will use performance information 

unless they believe it is credible and reliable and reflects a consensus about 

performance goals among a community of interested parties. Similarly, the 

measures used to demonstrate progress toward a goal, no matter how 

worthwhile, cannot appear to serve a single set of interests without 

potentially discouraging use of this information by others. 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 authorizations, 

appropriations, and oversight processes. 

As we have previously reported, effective congressional oversight can help 

improve federal performance by examining the program structures 

agencies use to deliver products and services to ensure that the best, most 

cost-effective mix of strategies is in place to meet agency and national 
Page 36 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

goals. While 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, a more

systematic approach could allow Congress to better articulate performance 

goals and outcomes for key programs of major concern. Such an approach 

could also facilitate OMB’s understanding of congressional priorities and 

concerns and, as a result, increase the usefulness of the PART in budget 

deliberations. 

Matter for 

Congressional 

Consideration

In order to facilitate an understanding of congressional priorities and 

concerns, we suggest that Congress consider the need for a strategy that 

could include (1) establishing a vehicle for communicating performance 

goals and measures for key congressional priorities and concerns; 

(2) developing a more structured oversight agenda to permit a more 

coordinated congressional perspective on crosscutting programs and 

policies; and (3) using such an agenda to inform its authorization, 

oversight, and appropriations processes.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

We have seven recommendations to OMB for building on and improving the 

first year’s experience with the PART and its process. We recommend that 

the Director of OMB 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 

purposes of the PART, and consider using internal agency evaluations as 
Page 37 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

evidence on a case-by-case 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.

• 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 warranting review.

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

articulating and implementing an integrated, complementary 

relationship between the two.

Agency Comments We provided a draft of this report to OMB for its review and comment. 

OMB generally agreed with our findings, conclusions, and 

recommendations. In addition, OMB outlined actions it is taking to address 

many of our 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. OMB officials provided a 

number of technical comments and clarifications, which we incorporated 

as appropriate to ensure the accuracy of our report. OMB’s comments 

appear in appendix IV. We also received technical comments on excerpts of 

the draft provided to the Departments of the Interior, Energy, and Health 

and Human Services. Comments received from the Departments of Energy 

and the Interior were incorporated as appropriate. The Department of 

Health and Human Services had no comments.

OMB noted that performance information gleaned from the PART process 

has not only informed budget decisions but has also helped direct program 

management, identified opportunities to improve program design, and 

promoted accountability. We agree. As shown in figure 1 in our report, we 
Page 38 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

found that 82 percent of PART recommendations addressed program 

assessment, design, and management issues; only 18 percent of the 

recommendations had a direct link to funding matters.

We are sending copies of this report to the Director of OMB, appropriate 

congressional committees, and other interested members of Congress. We 

will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the 

report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have questions about this report, please contact Paul 

Posner at (202) 512-9573 or posnerp@gao.gov. An additional contact and 

key contributors to this report are listed in appendix V.

David M. Walker

Comptroller General

of the United States
Page 39 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

To address the objectives in this report, we reviewed Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) materials and presentations on the development and 

implementation of the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) as well as 

the results of the PART assessments. Our review of materials included 

instructions for using PART, OMB’s testimony concerning PART, and public 

remarks made by OMB officials at relevant conferences and training. We 

also reviewed PART-related information on OMB’s Web site, including the 

OMB worksheets used to support the assessments, and attended OMB’s 

PART training for the fiscal year 2004 process. 

For this report, we focused on the process and final results of the fiscal 

year 2004 PART process, but also looked at the initial stages of the fiscal 

year 2005 process. We compared the PART guidance for both years and 

asked agency and OMB staff to discuss generally the differences between 

the 2 fiscal years. We did not review the final results for the fiscal year 2005 

PART, which are embargoed until the publication of the President’s fiscal 

year 2005 budget request. For the same reasons, we did not review the 

results of any reassessments conducted for fiscal year 2005 on programs 

originally assessed for fiscal year 2004. This report presents the 

experiences of staff from the three departments and OMB officials who we 

interviewed. We did not directly observe the PART process (for either year) 

in operation nor did we independently verify the PART assessments as 

posted on OMB's Web site or the program or financial information 

contained in the documents provided as evidence for the PART 

assessments. We did, however, take several steps to ensure that we reliably 

downloaded and combined the PART summaries and worksheets with our 

budget and recommendation classifications. Our steps included (1) having 

the computer programs we used to create and process our consolidated 

dataset verified by a second programmer; (2) having transcribed data 

elements from all programs checked back to source files; and (3) having 

selected, computer-processed data elements checked back to source files 

for a random sample of programs and also for specific programs identified 

in our analyses.

To better understand the universe of programs OMB assessed for fiscal 

year 2004, we developed overall profiles of PART results and examined 

relationships between such characteristics as type of program, type of 

recommendation, overall rating, total PART score, and answers for each 

question on PART. This review enabled us to generally confirm some 

information previously reported by OMB, for example, that PART scores do 

not automatically determine proposed funding and that grant programs 

scored lower overall than other types of programs. It also allowed us to 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 40 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

select a sample of programs for more in-depth review, and this sample was 

used to determine which OMB and agency officials we interviewed. 

To gain a better understanding of the PART process at both OMB and 

agencies, to inform our examination of the usefulness of PART as an 

evaluation tool, and to obtain various perspectives on the relationship 

between PART and GPRA, we interviewed officials at OMB and three 

selected departments. At OMB, we interviewed a range of staff, such as 

associate directors, deputy assistant directors, branch chiefs, and 

examiners. Specifically, we interviewed staff in two Resource Management 

Offices (RMO). In the Human Resources Programs RMO, we spoke with 

staff from the Health Division and the Education and Human Resources 

Division. In the Natural Resources, Energy and Science RMO we 

interviewed staff from the Energy and Interior Branches. In addition, we 

obtained the views of two groups within OMB that were convened 

specifically for the PART process: the Performance Evaluation Team (PET) 

and the Interagency Review Panel (IRP). The IRP included agency officials 

in addition to staff from OMB.

The three departments for which we reviewed the PART process were the 

Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Health and Human 

Services (HHS), and the Department of the Interior (DOI). We selected 

these three departments based on our data analysis of program types. The 

departments selected and their agencies had a variety of program types 

(e.g., block/formula grants, competitive grants, direct federal, and research 

and development) that were subject to PART and could provide us with a 

broad-based perspective on how PART was applied to different programs 

employing diverse tools of government. We also chose these three 

departments because they had programs under PART review within the 

two RMOs at OMB where we did more extensive interviewing, thus 

enabling us to develop a more in-depth understanding of how the PART 

process operated for a subset of programs. We used this information to 

complement our broader profiling of all 234 programs assessed. Within 

DOE we studied the experiences of the Office of Science, the Office of 

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and the Office of Fossil Energy. 

Within HHS, we studied the experiences of the Administration for Children 

and Families, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the 

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Within DOI, 

we studied the experiences of the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau 

of Indian Affairs, and the National Park Service. We interviewed planning, 

budget, and program staff within each of the nine agencies as well as those 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 41 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

at the department level. We also reviewed relevant supporting materials 

provided by these departments in conjunction with these interviews.

To allow us to describe how PART was used in fiscal year 2004 to influence 

changes in future performance, we created a consolidated dataset in which 

we classified recommendations OMB made by three areas in need of 

improvement: (1) program design, (2) program management, and (3) 

program assessment. A fourth category was created for those 

recommendations that involved funding issues. We created a consolidated 

dataset of information from our analysis of recommendations and selected 

information from the PART program summary page and worksheet for 

each program.1

In addition, for approximately 95 percent of the programs, we identified 

whether the basis for program funding was mandatory or discretionary. It 

was important to separate discretionary and mandatory programs in our 

review of PART’s potential influence on the President’s budget proposals 

because funding for mandatory programs is determined through 

authorizations, not through the annual appropriations process. Of the 234 

programs that OMB assessed for fiscal year 2004, we identified 27 

mandatory programs and 196 discretionary, but could not categorize 11 

programs as solely mandatory or discretionary because they were too 

mixed to classify.2

For discretionary programs, we explored the relationship between PART 

results and proposed budget changes in a series of regression analyses.3

Using statistical analysis, we found that PART scores influenced proposed 

1

 The PART program summary sheets are included in the Budget of the United States 

Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and Management Assessments (Washington, 

D.C.: February 2003). The summary sheets and worksheets for the 234 programs are on 

OMB’s Web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/pma.html. 

2

 These 11 programs are animal welfare, food aid, multifamily housing direct loans and 

rental assistance, rural electric utility loans and guarantees, and rural water and wastewater 

grants and loans programs in the Department of Agriculture; the nursing education loan 

repayment and scholarship program in HHS; the methane hydrates program in DOE; the 

reclamation hydropower program in DOI; the long-term guarantees program in the U.S. 

Export-Import Bank; and the climate change and development assistance/population 

programs in the Agency for International Development. 

3

 We tested the regression on mandatory programs and as expected the results showed no 

relationship between the PART scores and the level of funding proposed in the President’s 

Budget.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 42 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

funding changes for discretionary programs; however, a large amount of 

variability in these changes remains unexplained. We examined proposed 

funding changes between fiscal years 2003 and 2004 (measured by 

percentage change) and the relationship to PART scores for the programs 

assessed in the fiscal year 2004 President’s Budget. These scores are the 

weighted sums of scores for four PART categories: Program Purpose and 

Design, Strategic Planning, Program Management, and Program Results 

and Accountability. The corresponding weights assigned by OMB are 0.2, 

0.1, 0.2, and 0.5, respectively.4

 Tables in this appendix report regression 

results obtained using the method of least squares with heteroskedasticitycorrected standard errors.5

 The same estimation method is used 

throughout this analysis.

Overall PART scores have a positive and statistically significant effect on 

discretionary program funding. The programs evaluated by OMB include 

both mandatory and discretionary programs. Regression results for 

mandatory programs showed—as expected—no relationship between 

PART scores and the level of funding in the President’s Budget proposal. 

Assessment ratings, however, can potentially affect the funding for 

discretionary programs either in the President’s Budget proposal or in 

congressional deliberations on spending bills.6

 Table 3 reports the 

regression results for discretionary programs.

4 Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and 

Management Assessments, 10.

5

 For a discussion of this method, see W.H. Greene, Econometric Analysis, Section 10.3 

(Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003).

6 Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001, A Citizen’s Guide to the 

Federal Budget (Washington, D.C.: February 2000), 

http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2001/guide03.html, (downloaded April 2003), 2.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 43 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Table 3: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding Changes 

(Discretionary Programs)

Source: GAO analysis of OMB data.

Notes: R-squared = 0.058, Prob-F = 0.001, N = 196. Originally we identified 197 discretionary 

programs. However, no fiscal year 2004 budget estimate is reported for the Disclosed Worker 

Assistance program due to grant consolidation at the Department of Labor. (Budget of the United 

States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and Management Assessments (Washington, 

D.C.: February 2003), 191.) This reduced the number of discretionary programs to 196.

The estimated coefficient of the overall score is positive and significant. 

These results show that the aggregate PART score has a positive and 

statistically significant effect on the proposed change in discretionary 

programs’ budget, suggesting that programs with better scores are more 

likely to receive larger proposed budget increases. 

To examine the effect of program size on our results, we divided all 

programs equally into three groups—small, medium, and large—based on 

their fiscal year 2003 funding estimate. Regressions similar to those 

reported in table 3 were then performed for discretionary programs in each 

group. The results, reported in tables 4, 5, and 6 suggest that the 

statistically significant effect of overall scores on budget outcomes exists 

only for the smaller programs. The estimated coefficient of the overall 

score for large programs, which is significant but only at the 10 percent 

level, reflects an outlier.7

 Once this outlier is dropped, the estimated 

coefficient becomes statistically insignificant. 

Variable

Coefficient 

estimate

Robust 

standard error t-Statistic P-value

Overall PART score 0.536 0.159 3.38 0.001

Constant -25.671 8.682 -2.96 0.003

7

 The outlier is the Community Oriented Policing Services program with an estimated 77 

percent reduction in funding (see OMB, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2004, 

Performance and Management Assessments, (Washington, D.C.: February 2003), 178). The 

outlier in this case is identified using scatter plot and estimating with and without the 

outlier. The reported results for small and medium programs are not outlier driven.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 44 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Table 4: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding Changes (Small 

Discretionary Programs)

Source: GAO analysis of OMB data.

Note: R-squared = 0.092, Prob-F = 0.01, N = 71.

Table 5: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding Changes (MediumSize Discretionary Programs)

Source: GAO analysis of OMB data.

Note: R-squared = 0.039, Prob-F = 0.109, N = 67.

Table 6: The Effect of Overall PART Score on Proposed Funding Changes (Large 

Discretionary Programs)

Source: GAO analysis of OMB data.

Note: R-squared = 0.057, Prob-F = 0.082, N = 58.

The statistical analysis suggests that among the four components of the 

PART questionnaire, program purpose, management, and results have 

statistically significant effects on proposed funding changes, but the effects 

of program purpose and results are more robust across the estimated 

models. The overall score is a weighted average of four components: 

Program Purpose and Design, Strategic Planning, Program Management, 

and Program Results and Accountability.8

 To identify which of the four 

components contribute to the significant relationship observed here, we 

Variable

Coefficient 

estimate

Robust 

standard error t-Statistic P-value

Overall PART score 1.074 0.404 2.66 0.010

Constant -50.523 21.155 -2.39 0.020

Variable

Coefficient 

estimate

Robust 

standard error t-Statistic P-value

Overall PART score 0.306 0.188 1.62 0.109

Constant -17.984 12.480 -1.44 0.154

Variable

Coefficient 

estimate

Robust 

standard error t-Statistic P-value

Overall PART score 0.194 0.109 1.77 0.082

Constant -8.216 7.778 -1.06 0.295
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 45 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

examined the effect of each on proposed changes in programs’ funding 

levels. Tables 7 and 8 show estimates from regressions of the proposed 

funding change on purpose, planning, management, and results scores for 

all discretionary programs as well as small discretionary programs alone.

Table 7: The Effect of PART Component Scores on Proposed Funding Changes (All 

Discretionary Programs)

Source: GAO analysis of OMB data.

Note: R-squared = 0.087, Prob-F = 0.003, N = 196.

Table 8: The Effect of PART Component Scores on Proposed Funding Changes 

(Small Discretionary Programs)

Source: GAO analysis of OMB data.

Note: R-squared = 0.149, Prob-F = 0.043, N = 71.

These results suggest that among the four components, program purpose, 

management, and results are more likely to affect the proposed budget 

changes for discretionary programs. When all discretionary programs are 

8 Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and 

Management Assessments, 10.

Variable

Coefficient 

estimate

Robust 

standard error t-Statistic P-value

Purpose 0.325 0.127 2.56 0.011

Plan -0.259 0.199 -1.30 0.194

Management 0.191 0.117 1.63 0.105

Results 0.363 0.205 1.77 0.078

Constant -33.096 14.136 -2.34 0.020

Variable

Coefficient 

estimate

Robust 

standard error t-Statistic P-value

Purpose 0.223 0.274 0.81 0.419

Plan -0.671 0.543 -1.24 0.221

Management 0.547 0.304 1.80 0.077

Results 0.956 0.534 1.79 0.078

Constant -42.455 34.800 -1.22 0.227
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 46 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

included, the estimated coefficients are positive and significant for results 

(at the 10 percent level) and purpose. When only the small discretionary 

programs are included, the estimated coefficients are positive and 

significant for both management and results (at the 10 percent level). We 

also estimated the above regression for medium and large programs, but 

coefficient estimates were not statistically significant, except for the 

estimated coefficient of purpose for medium programs.

PART scores explain at most about 15 percent of the proposed funding 

changes, leaving a large portion of the variability in proposed funding 

changes unexplained. This suggests that most of the variance is due to 

institutional factors, program specifics, and other unquantifiable factors. 

The coefficient of determination (or R2

) is used to measure the proportion 

of the total variation in the regression’s dependent variable that is 

explained by the variation in the regressors (independent variables).9

 The 

maximum value of this measure across all estimated regressions is about 

15 percent.

Similar analyses were carried out for changes in the proposed budget for 

fiscal year 2004 and congressionally appropriated amounts in fiscal year 

2002. Results were qualitatively similar to those reported here.

To assess the strengths and weaknesses of PART as an evaluation tool and 

the consistency with which it was applied, we analyzed data from all 234 

programs that OMB reviewed using PART for fiscal year 2004. As part of 

our examination of the consistency with which PART was applied to 

programs, we also focused on a subset of programs to assess the way in 

which certain measurement issues were addressed across those programs. 

The issues were selected from those identified in interviews with officials 

from the selected agencies described above and our own review of the 

PART program summaries and worksheets. Measurement issues included 

acceptance of output versus outcome measures of annual and long-term 

goals, types of studies accepted as program evaluations, acknowledgment 

of related programs, and justifications for judging a PART question as “not 

applicable.” Programs were selected that formed clusters, each addressing 

a similar goal or shared a structural similarity pertinent to performance 

measurement, to examine whether PART assessment issues were handled 

similarly across programs when expected. We reviewed the worksheets 

and compared the treatment of assessment issues across specific questions 

9

 See Greene, 33.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 47 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

within and across programs in a cluster to identify potential 

inconsistencies in how the tool was applied. We reviewed a total of 28 

programs in nine clusters. The nine clusters are food safety, water supply, 

military equipment procurement, provision of health care, statistical 

agencies, block grants to assist vulnerable populations, energy research 

programs, wildland fire management, and disability compensation. 

With the exception of our summary analyses of all 234 programs, the 

information obtained from OMB and agency interviews, related material, 

and review of selected programs is not generalizable to the PART process 

for all 234 programs reviewed in fiscal year 2004. We conducted our review 

from May through October 2003 in accordance with generally accepted 

government auditing standards.
Page 48 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs ApendxiI

Below we have reproduced OMB’s fiscal year 2004 PART instrument. We 

have also included the comparison of fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005 

PART questions that appeared in the fiscal year 2005 PART guidance (see 

table 9).

Section I: Program 

Purpose & Design (Yes, 

No, N/A)

1. Is the program purpose clear?

2. Does the program address a specific interest, problem or need?

3. Is the program designed to have a significant impact in addressing the 

interest, problem or need?

4. Is the program designed to make a unique contribution in addressing 

the interest, problem or need (i.e., not needlessly redundant of any 

other Federal, state, local or private efforts)?

5. Is the program optimally designed to address the interest, problem or 

need?

Specific Program Purpose & 

Design Questions by 

Program Type

Research and Development Programs

6. (RD. 1) Does the program effectively articulate potential public 

benefits?

7. (RD. 2) If an industry-related problem, can the program explain how 

the market fails to motivate private investment?

Section II: Strategic 

Planning (Yes, No, N/A)

1. Does the program have a limited number of specific, ambitious longterm performance goals that focus on outcomes and meaningfully 

reflect the purpose of the program?

2. Does the program have a limited number of annual performance goals 

that demonstrate progress toward achieving the long-term goals?

3. Do all partners (grantees, subgrantees, contractors, etc.) support 

program-planning efforts by committing to the annual and/or long-term 

goals of the program?
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 49 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

4. Does the program collaborate and coordinate effectively with related 

programs that share similar goals and objectives?

5. Are independent and quality evaluations of sufficient scope conducted 

on a regular basis or as needed to fill gaps in performance information 

to support program improvements and evaluate effectiveness?

6. Is the program budget aligned with the program goals in such a way 

that the impact of funding, policy, and legislative changes on 

performance is readily known?

7. Has the program taken meaningful steps to address its strategic 

planning deficiencies?

Specific Strategic Planning 

Questions by Program Type

Regulatory-Based Programs

8. (RD. 1) Are all regulations issued by the program/agency necessary to 

meet the stated goals of the program, and do all regulations clearly 

indicate how the rules contribute to achievement of the goals?

Capital Assets and Service Acquisition Programs

8. (Cap. 1) Are acquisition program plans adjusted in response to 

performance data and changing conditions?

9. (Cap. 2) Has the agency/program conducted a recent, meaningful, 

credible analysis of alternatives that includes trade-offs between cost, 

schedule and performance goals?

Research and Development Programs

8. (RD. 1) Is evaluation of the program’s continuing relevance to mission, 

fields of science, and other “customer” needs conducted on a regular 

basis?

9. (RD. 2) Has the program identified clear priorities?
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 50 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Section III: Program 

Management (Yes, No, 

N/A)

1. Does the agency regularly collect timely and credible performance 

information, including information from key program partners, and use 

it to manage the program and improve performance?

2. Are Federal managers and program partners (grantees, subgrantees, 

contractors, etc.) held accountable for cost, schedule and performance 

results?

3. Are all funds (Federal and partners’) obligated in a timely manner and 

spent for the intended purpose? 

4. Does the program have incentives and procedures (e.g., competitive 

sourcing/cost comparisons, IT improvements) to measure and achieve 

efficiencies and cost effectiveness in program execution? 

5. Does the agency estimate and budget for the full annual costs of 

operating the program (including all administrative costs and allocated 

overhead) so that program performance changes are identified with 

changes in funding levels? 

6. Does the program use strong financial management practices? 

7. Has the program taken meaningful steps to address its management 

deficiencies?

Specific Program 

Management Questions by 

Program Type

Competitive Grant Programs

8. (Co. 1) Are grant applications independently reviewed based on clear 

criteria (rather than earmarked) and are awards made based on results 

of the peer review process?

9. (Co. 2) Does the grant competition encourage the participation of 

new/first-time grantees through a fair and open application process? 

10. (Co. 3) Does the program have oversight practices that provide 

sufficient knowledge of grantee activities?

11. (Co. 4) Does the program collect performance data on an annual basis 

and make it available to the public in a transparent and meaningful 

manner?
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 51 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Block/Formula Grant Programs

8. (B. 1) Does the program have oversight practices that provide sufficient 

knowledge of grantee activities?

9. (B. 2) Does the program collect grantee performance data on an annual 

basis and make it available to the public in a transparent and 

meaningful manner?

Regulatory-Based Programs

8. (Reg. 1) Did the program seek and take into account the views of 

affected parties including state, local and tribal governments and small 

businesses, in drafting significant regulations? 

9. (Reg. 2) Did the program prepare, where appropriate, a Regulatory 

Impact Analysis that comports with OMB's economic analysis 

guidelines and have these RIA analyses and supporting science and 

economic data been subjected to external peer review by qualified 

specialists?

10. (Reg. 3) Does the program systematically review its current regulations 

to ensure consistency among all regulations in accomplishing program 

goals? 

11. (Reg. 4) In developing new regulations, are incremental societal costs 

and benefits compared?

12. (Reg. 5) Did the regulatory changes to the program maximize net 

benefits?

13. (Reg. 6) Does the program impose the least burden, to the extent 

practicable, on regulated entities, taking into account the costs of 

cumulative final regulations? 

Capital Assets and Service Acquisition Programs

8. (Cap. 1) Does the program define the required quality, capability, and 

performance objectives of deliverables?

9. (Cap. 2) Has the program established appropriate, credible, cost and 

schedule goals?
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 52 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

10. (Cap. 3) Has the program conducted a recent, credible, cost-benefit 

analysis that shows a net benefit?

11. (Cap. 4) Does the program have a comprehensive strategy for risk 

management that appropriately shares risk between the government 

and contractor? 

Credit Programs

8. (Cr. 1) Is the program managed on an ongoing basis to assure credit 

quality remains sound, collections and disbursements are timely and 

reporting requirements are fulfilled?

9. (Cr. 2) Does the program consistently meet the requirements of the 

Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, the Debt Collection Improvement 

Act and applicable guidance under OMB Circulars A-1, A-34, and A-129?

10. (Cr. 3) Is the risk of the program to the U.S. Government measured 

effectively? 

Research and Development Programs

8. (RD. 1) Does the program allocate funds through a competitive, meritbased process, or, if not, does it justify funding methods and document 

how quality is maintained?

9. (RD. 2) Does competition encourage the participation of new/first-time 

performers through a fair and open application process?

10. (RD. 3) Does the program adequately define appropriate termination 

points and other decision points? 

11. (RD. 4) If the program includes technology development or 

construction or operation of a facility, does the program clearly define 

deliverables and required capability/performance characteristics and 

appropriate, credible cost and schedule goals?
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 53 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Section IV: Program 

Results (Yes, Large 

Extent, Small Extent, 

No)

1. Has the program demonstrated adequate progress in achieving its longterm outcome goal(s)? 

• Long-Term Goal I:

Target:

Actual Progress achieved toward goal:

• Long-Term Goal II:

Target:

Actual Progress achieved toward goal:

• Long-Term Goal III:

Target:

Actual Progress achieved toward goal:

2. Does the program (including program partners) achieve its annual 

performance goals? 

• Key Goal I: 

Performance Target: 

Actual Performance:

• Key Goal II:

Performance Target:

Actual Performance:

• Key Goal III:

Performance Target:

Actual Performance:

Note: Performance targets should reference the performance baseline and 

years, e.g. achieve a 5% increase over base of X in 2000. 

3. Does the program demonstrate improved efficiencies and cost 

effectiveness in achieving program goals each year?

4. Does the performance of this program compare favorably to other 

programs with similar purpose and goals?

5. Do independent and quality evaluations of this program indicate that 

the program is effective and achieving results? 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 54 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Specific Results Questions 

by Program Type

Regulatory-Based Programs

6. (Reg. 1) Were programmatic goals (and benefits) achieved at the least 

incremental societal cost and did the program maximize net benefits?

Capital Assets and Service Acquisition Programs

6. (Cap. 1) Were program goals achieved within budgeted costs and 

established schedules?

Research and Development Programs

6. (RD. 1) If the program includes construction of a facility, were program 

goals achieved within budgeted costs and established schedules?

Table 9: Side-by-Side of the Fiscal Year 2005 PART and the Fiscal Year 2004 PART Questions 

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 

I. Program purpose & design 

1.1 Is the program purpose clear? 1 Same 

1.2 Does the program address a specific 

and existing problem, interest, or 

need? 

2 Does the program address a specific 

interest, problem or need? 

Wording clarified. 

3 Is the program designed to have a 

significant impact in addressing the 

interest, problem or need? 

Dropped; “significant” worked 

against small programs and 

was not clear. 

1.3 Is the program designed so that it is 

not redundant or duplicative of any 

other Federal, state, local or private 

effort? 

4 Is the program designed to make a 

unique contribution in addressing the 

interest, problem or need (i.e., is not 

needlessly redundant of any other 

Federal, state or, local or private 

effort)? 

Wording clarified.

1.4 Is the program design free of major 

flaws that would limit the program’s 

effectiveness or efficiency? 

5 Is the program optimally designed to 

address the national, interest, problem 

or need? 

Minor change to clarify focus; 

“optimally” was too broad. 

1.5 Is the program effectively targeted, so 

that resources will reach intended 

beneficiaries and/or otherwise address 

the program’s purpose directly? 

New question to address 

distributional design. 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 55 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Specific Program Purpose and Design Questions by Program Type

Research and Development Programs

RD.1 Does the program effectively articulate 

potential public benefits? 

Dropped; covered by 1.2. 

RD. 2 If an industry-related problem, can the 

program explain how the market fails 

to motivate private investment? 

Dropped; covered by I.2 and 

I.5. 

II. Strategic planning 

2.1 Does the program have a limited 

number of specific long-term 

performance measures that focus on 

outcomes and meaningfully reflect the 

purpose of the program? 

1 Does the program have a limited 

number of specific, ambitious longterm performance goals that focus on 

outcomes and meaningfully reflect the 

purpose of the program? 

Splits old II.1 into separate 

questions on existence of (1) 

long-term performance 

measures and (2) targets for 

these measures. Together, the 

measures and targets comprise 

the long-term performance 

goals addressed in last year’s 

question.

2.2 Does the program have ambitious 

targets and timeframes for its longterm measures? 

Splits old II.1; see above. 

2.3 Does the program have a limited 

number of specific annual 

performance measures that can 

demonstrate progress toward 

achieving the program’s long-term 

goals? 

2 Does the program have a limited 

number of annual performance goals 

that demonstrate progress toward 

achieving the long-term goals? 

Splits old II.2 into separate 

questions on existence of (1) 

annual performance measures 

and (2) targets for these 

measures. Together, the 

measures and targets comprise 

the annual performance goals 

addressed in last year’s 

question. 

2.4 Does the program have baselines and 

ambitious targets for its annual 

measures? 

Splits old II.2; see above. 

2.5 Do all partners (including grantees, 

sub-grantees, contractors, costsharing partners, and other 

government partners) commit to and 

work toward the annual and/or longterm goals of the program? 

3 Do all partners (grantees, subgrantees, contractors, etc.) support 

program planning efforts by 

committing to the annual and/or longterm goals of the program? 

Wording clarified. 

4 Does the program collaborate and 

coordinate effectively with related 

programs that share similar goals and 

objectives? 

Moved to question 3.5. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 56 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

2.6 Are independent evaluations of 

sufficient scope and quality conducted 

on a regular basis or as needed to 

support program improvements and 

evaluate effectiveness and relevance 

to the problem, interest, or need? 

5 Are independent and quality 

evaluations of sufficient scope 

conducted on a regular basis or as 

needed to fill gaps in performance 

information to support program 

improvements and evaluate 

effectiveness? 

Wording clarified. 

2.7 Are budget requests explicitly tied to 

accomplishment of the annual and 

long-term performance goals, and are 

the resource needs presented in a 

complete and transparent manner in 

the program’s budget? 

6 Is the program budget aligned with the 

program goals in such a way that the 

impact of funding, policy, and 

legislative changes on performance is 

readily known? 

Modified. 

2.8 Has the program taken meaningful 

steps to correct its strategic planning 

deficiencies? 

7 Same.

Specific Strategic Planning Questions by Program Type 

Regulatory Based Programs 

2.RG1 Are all regulations issued by the 

program/agency necessary to meet 

the stated goals of the program, and 

do all regulations clearly indicate how 

the rules contribute to achievement of 

the goals? 

Reg. 1 Same. 

Capital Assets & Service Acquisition Programs 

Cap. 1 Are acquisition program plans 

adjusted in response to performance 

data and changing conditions?

Dropped; covered in 2.CA1 and 

3.CA1. 

2.CA1 Has the agency/program conducted a 

recent, meaningful, credible analysis 

of alternatives that includes trade-offs 

between cost, schedule, risk, and 

performance goals and used the 

results to guide the resulting activity? 

Cap. 2 Has the agency/program conducted a 

recent, meaningful, credible analysis 

of alternatives that includes trade-offs 

between cost, schedule and 

performance goals? 

Minor change. 

R&D Programs

R&D programs addressing technology 

development or the construction or 

operation of a facility should answer 

2.CA1. 

2.RD1 If applicable, does the program assess 

and compare the potential benefits of 

efforts within the program to other 

efforts that have similar goals? 

RD. 1 Is evaluation of the program's 

continuing relevance to mission, fields 

of science, and other "customer" 

needs conducted on a regular basis? 

Modified. 

2.RD2 Does the program use a prioritization 

process to guide budget requests and 

funding decisions? 

RD. 2 Has the program identified clear 

priorities? 

Modified. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 57 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

III. Program management 

3.1 Does the agency regularly collect 

timely and credible performance 

information, including information from 

key program partners, and use it to 

manage the program and improve 

performance? 

1 Same.

3.2 Are Federal managers and program 

partners (including grantees, subgrantees, contractors, cost-sharing 

partners, and other government 

partners) held accountable for cost, 

schedule and performance results? 

2 Same.

3.3 Are funds (Federal and partners’) 

obligated in a timely manner and spent 

for the intended purpose? 

3 Same.

3.4 Does the program have procedures 

(e.g. competitive sourcing/cost 

comparisons, IT improvements, 

appropriate incentives) to measure 

and achieve efficiencies and cost 

effectiveness in program execution? 

4 Same.

3.5 Does the program collaborate and 

coordinate effectively with related 

programs?

Same as old question 2.4.

5 Does the agency estimate and budget 

for the full annual costs of operating 

the program (including all 

administrative costs and allocated 

overhead) so that program 

performance changes are identified 

with changes in funding levels? 

Now covered by guidance for 

question 2.7.

3.6 Does the program use strong financial 

management practices? 

6 Same.

3.7 Has the program taken meaningful 

steps to address its management 

deficiencies? 

7 Same. 

Specific Program Management Questions by Program Type

Competitive Grant Programs

3.CO1 Are grants awarded based on a clear 

competitive process that includes a 

qualified assessment of merit? 

Co. 1 Are grant applications independently 

reviewed based on clear criteria 

(rather than earmarked) and are 

awards made based on results of the 

peer review process? 

Modified. Guidance also 

captures former question Co. 2. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 58 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Co.2 Does the grant competition encourage 

the participation of new/first-time 

grantees through a fair and open 

application process? 

Now considered in guidance for 

answering 3.CO1, above.

3.CO2 Does the program have oversight 

practices that provide sufficient 

knowledge of grantee activities? 

Co. 3 Does the agency have sufficient 

knowledge about grantee activities? 

Wording clarified. 

3.CO3 Does the program collect grantee 

performance data on an annual basis 

and make it available to the public in a 

transparent and meaningful manner? 

Co. 4 Same. 

Block/Formula Grant Programs

3.BF1 Does the program have oversight 

practices that provide sufficient 

knowledge of grantee activities? 

B. 1 Same. 

3.BF2 Does the program collect grantee 

performance data on an annual basis 

and make it available to the public in a 

transparent and meaningful manner? 

B. 2 Same. 

Regulatory Based Programs 

3.RG1 Did the program seek and take into 

account the views of all affected 

parties (e.g., consumers; large and 

small businesses; State, local and 

tribal governments; beneficiaries; and 

the general public) when developing 

significant regulations? 

Reg. 1 Did the program seek and take into 

account the views of affected parties 

including state, local and tribal 

governments and small businesses in 

drafting significant regulations? 

Wording clarified. 

3.RG2 Did the program prepare adequate 

regulatory impact analyses if required 

by Executive Order 12866, regulatory 

flexibility analyses if required by the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act and 

SBREFA, and cost-benefit analyses if 

required under the Unfunded 

Mandates Reform Act; and did those 

analyses comply with OMB 

guidelines?

Reg. 2 Did the program prepare, where 

appropriate, a Regulatory Impact 

Analysis (RIA) that comports with 

OMB's economic analysis guidelines 

and have these RIA analyses and 

supporting science and economic data 

been subjected to external peer 

review, as appropriate, by qualified 

specialists?

Minor change. 

3.RG3 Does the program systematically 

review its current regulations to ensure 

consistency among all regulations in 

accomplishing program goals? 

Reg. 3 Same. 

Reg. 4 In developing new regulations, are 

incremental societal costs and benefits 

compared? 

Merged into new 3.RG4. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 59 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

3.RG4 Are the regulations designed to 

achieve program goals, to the extent 

practicable, by maximizing the net 

benefits of its regulatory activity? 

Reg. 5 Did the regulatory changes to the 

program maximize net benefits? 

Combines former questions 

Reg. 4, 5, & 6. 

Reg. 6 Does the program impose the least 

burden, to the extent practicable, on 

regulated entities, taking into account 

the costs of cumulative final 

regulations? 

Merged in to new 3.RG4. 

Capital Assets and Service Acquisition Programs 

3.CA1 Is the program managed by 

maintaining clearly defined 

deliverables, capability/performance 

characteristics, and appropriate, 

credible cost and schedule goals? 

New question, covers old Cap. 

1, 2, 3, and 4.

Cap. 1 Does the program clearly define the 

required quality, capability, and 

performance objectives for 

deliverables and required 

capabilities/performance 

characteristics? 

Merged into new 2.CA1 and 

3.CA1. 

Cap 2. Has the program established 

appropriate, credible, cost and 

schedule goals? 

Merged into new 2.CA1 and 

3.CA1. 

Cap 3. Has the program conducted a recent, 

credible, cost-benefit analysis that 

shows a net benefit? 

Merged into new 2.CA1 and 

3.CA1. 

Cap 4. Does the program have a 

comprehensive strategy for risk 

management that appropriately shares 

risk between the government and 

contractor? 

Merged into new 2.CA1 and 

3.CA1. 

Credit Programs 

3.CR1 Is the program managed on an 

ongoing basis to assure credit quality 

remains sound, collections and 

disbursements are timely, and 

reporting requirements are fulfilled? 

Cr. 1 Same. 

Cr. 2 Does the program consistently meet 

the requirements of the Federal Credit 

Reform Act of 1990, the Debt 

Collection Improvement Act and 

applicable guidance under OMB 

Circulars A-1, A-11, and A-129? 

Merged into new 3.CR2. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 60 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

3.CR2 Do the program’s credit models 

adequately provide reliable, 

consistent, accurate and transparent 

estimates of costs and the risk to the 

Government?

Cr. 3 Is the risk of the program to the U.S. 

Government measured effectively?

Combines former Cr. 2 and 3.

Research and Development Programs 

R&D programs addressing technology 

development or the construction or 

operation of a facility should answer 

3.CA1. R&D programs that use 

competitive grants should answer 

3.CO1, CO2 and CO3.

3.RD1 For R&D programs other than 

competitive grants programs, does the 

program allocate funds and use 

management processes that maintain 

program quality? 

RD. 1 Does the program allocate funds 

through a competitive, merit-based 

process, or, if not, does it justify 

funding methods and document how 

quality is maintained? 

Modified.

RD. 2 Does competition encourage the 

participation of new/first-time 

performers through a fair and open 

application process? 

Covered by 3.CO1. 

RD. 3 Does the program adequately define 

appropriate termination points and 

other decision points? 

Covered by 2.CA1 and 3.CA1. 

RD. 4 If the program includes technology 

development or construction or 

operation of a facility, does the 

program clearly define deliverables, 

capability/performance characteristics, 

and appropriate, credible cost and 

schedule goals? 

Covered by 2.CA1 and 3.CA1. 

IV. Program results 

4.1 Has the program demonstrated 

adequate progress in achieving its 

long-term performance goals? 

1 Has the program demonstrated 

adequate progress in achieving its 

long-term outcome goal(s)? 

Minor change. 

4.2 Does the program (including program 

partners) achieve its annual 

performance goals? 

2 Same.

4.3 Does the program demonstrate 

improved efficiencies or cost 

effectiveness in achieving program 

goals each year? 

3 Same.

4.4 Does the performance of this program 

compare favorably to other programs, 

including government, private, etc., 

with similar purpose and goals? 

4 Does the performance of this program 

compare favorably to other programs 

with similar purpose and goals? 

Minor change. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Appendix II

The Fiscal Year 2004 PART and Differences 

Between the Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 PARTs

Page 61 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Source: OMB Web site, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/part/bpm861.pdf (downloaded Apr. 7, 2003), 6-12.

4.5 Do independent evaluations of 

sufficient scope and quality indicate 

that the program is effective and 

achieving results? 

5 Same. 

Specific Results Questions by Program Type 

 Regulatory Based Programs 

4.RG1 Were programmatic goals (and 

benefits) achieved at the least 

incremental societal cost and did the 

program maximize net benefits? 

Same.

Capital Assets and Service Acquisition Programs 

4.CA1 Were program goals achieved within 

budgeted costs and established 

schedules? 

Cap. 1 Same. 

Research and Development Programs 

R&D programs addressing technology 

development or the construction or 

operation of a facility should answer 

4.CA1. 

RD. 1 If the program includes construction of 

a facility, were program goals achieved 

within budgeted costs and established 

schedules? 

Simplified. 

(Continued From Previous Page)

This year’s question (fiscal year 

2005 PART)

Last year’s question (fiscal year 

2004 PART) Comment 
Page 62 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Appendix III

Development of PART ApendxiI

Fiscal Year 2003 This administration’s efforts to link budget and performance began with the 

fiscal year 2003 budget, in which the administration announced the 

“Executive Branch Management Scorecard,” a traffic-light grading system 

to report the work of federal agencies in implementing the President’s 

Management Agenda’s five governmentwide initiatives. Each quarter, OMB 

assessed agencies achievement toward the “standards of success”—

specific goals articulated for each of the five initiatives. Since some of the 

five initiatives require continual efforts, OMB also assessed agencies’ 

progress toward achieving the standards. The fiscal year 2003 President’s 

Budget also included OMB’s assessments of the effectiveness of 130 

programs and a brief explanation of the assessments. According to OMB, 

the assessments were based on OMB staff’s knowledge of the programs 

and professional judgments; specific criteria were not publicly available 

with which to support OMB’s judgments. 

Fiscal Year 2004 During the spring of 2002, an internal OMB task force—PET—consisting of 

staff from various OMB divisions, created PART to make the process of 

rating programs robust and consistent across government programs. 

During the development of PART, OMB solicited input from interested 

parties both inside and outside the federal government, including GAO and 

congressional staff. PART was tested on 67 programs during a series of 

Spring Review meetings with the OMB Director. Based on these results and 

other stakeholder feedback, PET recommended a series of refinements to 

PART, such as using a four-point scale in the Results section as opposed to 

the “yes/no” format. Another key change was revising the Program Purpose 

and Design section (Section I) to remove the question “Is the federal role 

critical?” because it was seen as subjective—based on an individual's 

political views. 
Appendix III

Development of PART

Page 63 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

In July 2002, OMB issued PART in final and accompanying instructions for 

completing the assessments for the President’s fiscal year 2004 budget 

submission. Later that month, OMB provided a series of training sessions 

on PART for staff from OMB and agencies. Agencies received completed 

PART assessments during early September 2002 and submitted written 

appeals to OMB by mid-September. OMB formed the IRP, comprising OMB 

and agency officials, to conduct consistency reviews1

 and provide 

recommendations on selected PART appeals. The IRP also provided OMB 

with a broad set of recommendations aimed at improving the PART based 

on IRP’s experience with the consistency audit and appeals. OMB was to 

finalize all PART assessments by the end of September 2002, although both 

agency and OMB officials told us that changes and appeals continued 

through the end of the budget season. RMOs within OMB provided draft 

summaries of PART results to the Director of OMB during the Director’s 

review of agencies’ budget requests. The President’s fiscal year 2004 

budget (issued February 3, 2003) included a separate volume containing 

one-page summaries of the PART results for each of the 234 programs that 

were assessed.2

 

The relationship between PART and the administration’s proposals was 

presented in agencies’ budget justification materials sent to Congress. In an 

unprecedented move, OMB also posted PART, one-page rating results, and 

detailed supporting worksheets on its Web site. OMB also included its Web 

address in the Performance and Management Assessments volume of the 

budget and, in the budget itself, also described PART and its process and 

asked for comments on how to improve PART.

Figure 3 depicts a time line of the events related to the formulation of the 

President’s budget request, including the key stages of PART development.

1

 According to OMB, IRP performed consistency reviews on a stratified random sample of 

programs that completed the PART in preparation for the fiscal year 2004 budget. While IRP 

made recommendations regarding its findings, it did not have the authority to enforce them. 

2 Fiscal Year 2004 Budget of the United States Government, Performance and 

Management Assessments, (Washington, D.C.: February 2003).
Appendix III

Development of PART

Page 64 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Figure 3: The PART Process and Budget Formulation Timelines 

Fiscal Year 2005 For the fiscal year 2005 PART, OMB moved the entire assessment process 

from the fall to spring. OMB told us that the change was meant to help 

alleviate the burden of having the PART process overlap the end of the 

budget season, when workload is already so heavy. Another difference 

between the 2 years was that agency officials reported that OMB was more 

collaborative with the agencies in selecting the programs for the fiscal year 

2005 PART.

Training on the PART assessments to be included in the President’s fiscal 

year 2005 budget began in early May 2003. Agencies submitted PART 

appeals in early July, and OMB aimed to resolve the appeals and finalize the 

PART scores by the end of July. In December of 2003, RMOs were to 

finalize the summaries of PART results, which will be published in 

February along with the fiscal year 2005 President’s Budget.
Page 65 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Appendix IV

Comments from the Office of Management 

and Budget ApendxiIV
Appendix IV

Comments from the Office of Management 

and Budget

Page 66 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting
Page 67 GAO-04-174 Performance Budgeting

Appendix V

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiV

GAO Contacts Paul Posner, (202) 512-9573

Denise Fantone, (202) 512-4997

Acknowledgments In addition to the above contacts, Kristeen McLain, Jackie Nowicki, and 

Stephanie Shipman made significant contributions to this report. Thomas 

Beall, Joseph Byrns, Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Evan Gilman, Patrick Mullen, 

David Nicholson, and Mark Ramage also made key contributions to this 

report. 

(450190)
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