Training is also a high priority. Agencies are able to retain half the money they save from re-engineering efforts, and often utilize it to build workforce skills. Governor Locke arrived in office with a management agenda as well as a political agenda, and has strongly pushed a quality initiative that emphasizes a results orientation. Locke supports the idea that performance budgeting and strategic planning should be integrated into one common initiative inside every agency. Reporting of results against targets is now required of all the agencies on a quarterly, not a biennial, basis.
Plans call for agency performance against targets to be reported on the state's Web site.
Still, the new emphasis has yet to penetrate the entire administrative structure. About a sixth of the agencies do not yet provide outcome-oriented measures, and the development of effective measures and useful data still requires work. A Washington is an innovator in this category. Its new centralized Performance Measure Tracking System allows agencies to enter and monitor progress against their own standards, a relative rarity in the states. The Department of Information Services markets its services in competition with the private sector.