The Government Performance and Results Act's ultimate goal is to show Americans what they're getting for their federal tax dollars. But agencies are having trouble showing what they achieve with the money they spend, General Accounting Office reviews show.
In recent reviews of agencies' proposed 1999 performance plans, GAO found that agencies are setting goals and budget targets, but are not showing how the goals and budgets are related.
For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "did not directly link strategies to performance goals, nor did the agency link resources to strategies," GAO said. "As a result, neither the performance plan nor the fiscal year 1999 budget request shows the resources needed to achieve each performance goal, and the plan does not provide a rationale as to how resources will contribute to accomplishing the expected level of performance."
Under the Results Act, agencies completed their first-ever five-year strategic plans last fall. This February, agencies submitted their first annual performance plans to Congress, with their fiscal 1999 budget requests. In March 2000, agencies will report on whether they met their 1999 goals.
GAO is in the midst of reviewing all major agencies' performance plans. So far the agency has completed reviews of the NRC, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, and the departments of Energy, Interior, Justice and Transportation.
GAO recommended that agencies more directly show the relationship between budget requests and program results. For example, GAO suggested the Energy Department allocate the funds from each of the programs in the department's budget request to the program's performance goal in the performance plan.
GAO also found that agencies will have trouble showing whether they achieved their goals when they report to Congress in March 2000. For example, the Interior Department's plans (including those for its bureaus) do not clearly describe how program data will be verified. The "plans provide users with little assurance that the performance data will be reliable and that Interior and subagency systems are secure from risks, such as tampering, that could affect the reliability and availability of performance data," GAO said.
GAO gave several agencies good marks for setting measurable performance goals, something that has been difficult for agencies with complex programs. GAO lauded the Transportation Department for developing "objective, quantified and useful" performance goals. Transportation set a goal of maintaining 93 percent of airport runway pavements in satisfactory condition in 1999, for example.
GAO also said agencies should describe the external factors that may influence outcomes. "The efforts of agencies often are but one factor among many that may influence whether, and the degree to which, an agency's programs achieve their intended results," GAO noted.
In a recent speech, Vice President Al Gore urged agencies to "use the discipline of the Results Act to transform what government does." Congressional Republicans have also seized on the act as a way to hold federal programs more accountable. But GAO's reviews show that agencies have much work ahead of them before the strategic and performance plans under the law are useful for federal managers and congressional appropriators.
"The first-year plans are not as useful as they could be," said Carl DeMaio, a Results Act specialist at the Washington-based Congressional Institute. "The plans are not good enough for congressional decisionmaking."
DeMaio noted that agencies are not very experienced in strategic planning, so they will need several years to get to the point where they can explain how their budgets relate to their performance.
"Some agencies want to have a few more years of performance planning and strategic planning under their belts before they link goals up to the budget," DeMaio said, adding that agencies also need to involve more managers in Results Act planning. "Line managers are either unaware of the act or they have a very negative reaction to it. They think it's nothing but another tool to beat up on the public manager. I don't think agencies have been good at communicating the value of the Results Act."
The GAO reviews are not yet available on the Web. Reports can be ordered by calling GAO's document distribution center at 202-512-6000.
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