|
Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Government
Affairs Committee Joint Hearing on the implementation
of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)
June 24, 1997
On June 24, 1997, the Senate Appropriations Committee
and the Senate Government Affairs Committee held a
joint hearing on the implementation of the Government
Performance and Results Act (GPRA). Franklin Raines,
Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
and John Koskinen, Deputy Director of Management at
the Office of Management and Budget, testified before
the joint hearing. Although not present, James Hinchman,
Acting U.S. Comptroller General, U.S. General Accounting
Office, submitted written testimony suggesting ways
Congress could use GPRA to help agencies become more
effective and efficient.
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), Chairman of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, and Senator Fred Thompson
(R-TN), Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee, expressed reservations about Federal agencies'
progress-to-date on their strategic plans, which are
due to the Office of Management and Budget by September
30, 1997. Senator Stevens stated his intention to
collaborate with the Government Affairs Committee
to conduct an assessment of all agency strategic plans
by mid-September so that the Appropriations Subcommittees
could place any necessary conditions in the FY 1998
appropriations bills. Senator Thompson echoed the
criticisms, specifically singling out the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS)'s plan as inadequate
and citing OMB's decision to defer the GPRA performance
budgeting pilots as indicative of agencies' poor progress
on improving their accounting systems.
At the hearing, the Committee on Government Affairs
released to the public a chart entitled, "Assessment
of Agency GPRA Strategic Plans" that separates agencies'
plans into the following categories: Acceptable, Minimally
Acceptable, Poor, Too Early to Tell, and Late. While
NASA is the only agency listed with an acceptable
plan, other agencies listed as having submitted their
plans late, such as the National Science Foundation,
have been consulting with other Congressional Committees
for months. Nonetheless, the chart supports the Chairman's
conviction that Federal agencies have significant
work to complete before the end of September.
While Raines and Koskinen were more supportive of Federal
agencies' progress-to-date than their Congressional
colleagues, they agreed that most Federal agencies
need to improve their strategic plans and will face
even greater challenges in developing performance
plans with their FY 1999 budget requests. They urged
Congress both to provide feedback to agencies and
to press them to finish their plans. In particular,
Raines emphasized that, if the Appropriations Committee
is engaged, agencies will be less likely to view GPRA
as just another paper exercise. He further reiterated
the importance of linking employee compensation to
performance measures as one means to encourage agency
to become more results-oriented.
On the other hand, Senator Glenn (D-OH) tried to counter-balance
the criticisms of his colleagues. He pointed out that
it will take time to implement GPRA because it is
particularly difficult to link activity-based costing
with performance goals. Agency goals, as outlined
in strategic plans, may span several budget categories
making the impact of investments difficult to track.
He suggested that, although seven years after Congress
passed the Chief Financial Officer Act, only a few
agencies have clean audits, the Act has prompted significant
progress by other agencies as well.
In sum, the hearing indicates that both the Office
of Management and Budget and Congress are taking the
Government Performance and Results Act seriously.
Moreover, it provided insight into how the Appropriations
Committee plans to use the Act to weigh the relative
efficiency and effectiveness of agencies' programs.
Particularly under currently tight budgetary constraints,
appropriators can use GPRA as one more mechanism to
determine which programs are worth funding and which
appear to be ineffective and therefore can be cut.
|
|