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Opinions for November 1999 were:
November 29, 1999 - Performance Management and
Measures - Why Only a Few Succeed. The performance plans are in
house exercises that lose track of what they are to accomplish.
November 22, 1999 - Next year will be different -
maybe. Thoughts on what may happen during 2000 on the FY 2001
budget.
November 15, 1999 - More on Waste and its Causes
- Infrastructure is the Problem/Only in America. Additional
examples and considerations of what is the cause of "waste" in the Federal
government today.
November 7, 1999 - Elections will tell who won.
Time to focus on operating planning and FY 2001 budget.
November 29, 1999 - Performance Management and
Measures - Why Only a Few Succeed
 | Under the Federal GPRA (Government Performance and Results Act) all agencies are
required to have strategic plans and annual performance plans. (For more on
strategic plans, see Strategy.) Congress routinely
reviews how agencies are doing in developing these plans, and has found them
wanting. Documentation of deficiencies abound. Only the Department of
Transportation gets consistent high marks on its performance plans. With only one
department getting high marks, there must be many managers who strive but don't manage to
develop acceptable performance plans. And they have to do this every year and fail.
Their level of frustration must increase. So are these people
incompetent? I don't think so. If not so, what is going on? |
| The performance plans are in house exercises that lose track of what they are to
accomplish. A review of the performance plans shows that most of them are
disjointed, without a unifying focus. They are a jumble of measures related to a
multitude of activities. They are an inventory of the many activities of each of the
agencies that make up a major department, or that of the operating components of
individual agencies. They confuse the uninitiated reader. |
| The United States' Federal government is large and complicated. It is difficult to
comprehend what is being done and why. It is difficult to understand why it takes
resources to get anything accomplished. (This is one of the reasons why accusations
of "waste" in programs are so easily made.) Making inventories of
activities may make sense at some level, but inventories of activities are not
understandable to outsiders, especially when there is nothing to relate one inventory of
activities to the other within the same agency. Inventories of activities couched in
terms of "measures of performance" do not aid understanding. |
| The point of the performance management system envisioned by the GPRA is to make
government programs understandable in simple terms. Neither the people nor the
Congress can understand a jumble of activities. Only what is understood can be
managed. Ultimately the people have to "manage" the government, so they
need to understand it. Their resources are allocated to programs, and there has to
be a readily understandable relationship between the programs and the annual budget
requests and the appropriations made by Congress. |
| The main difference between the Department of Transportation's work and that of other
agencies is that DOT's performance plan is easy to comprehend. It does take some
work, but it can be read and understood quickly. The measures are related to
activities that most people would identify as related to a department that deals with
transportation matters, and it does not take a large amount of additional information to
understand what the measures are all about. The most significant characteristic of
the DOT plan is that it presents a consistent picture of the Department as a whole; there
is no sub-organization that can be uniquely identified as having sole responsibility for
performing the work related to a measure. The measures present an integrated picture
of the Department's (and others') activities. |
| The plans criticized by Congress and others do not present an integrated picture of the
activities of the organizations involved. In many cases, the work of independent
sub-organizations can be clearly traced. Separate parts of an integrated program can
be identified in the measures. Not only is this confusing, but it also shows that
there is no integrated management, at least at the level of developing a plan. This,
in turn, raises questions about the day to day management of what should be integrated
activities - if the plan and the measurement of progress are not integrated, it is
difficult to prove that management is integrated, working towards the attainment of common
objectives. And this is the basis for the criticism leveled at agencies: The
plans do not show program integration. |
| What this means for change within the affected agencies belongs in a future opinion.
Budget and program analysts need to show in a plan the integration of activities in
a way that is self-evident. This is important for their program's - and their own -
success. And succeeding in this will benefit all: Congress and the public will
have a better idea of why things are being done, and managers may get insights that they
currently do not have. |
| This also means that to succeed in the budget process there can be no difference between
the annual budget request and the annual performance plan. They must be integrated
if the marketing of the budget is to be successful. To sell the budget, the
performance measures and measurements have to be understandable and so stated in the
annual budget request. And budgeting is marketing - you may want to read my opinion on budgeting as marketing. |
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November 22, 1999 - Next year will be different - maybe.
| We can always hope that next year will be better, and that what could not be fixed this
year will be fixed next year. This is the stuff of all New Years' resolutions.
There is no reason why there shouldn't be such hope related to the Federal budget
process. We can all hope and resolve that tricks, earmarks, last minute private
deals, and substantive legislation hidden in appropriations will be left behind. The
true social security problems will be addressed. A new dawn of responsible and
honest government could be upon us. |
| Now, on with reality. Congress left town, and left behind another Omnibus
Appropriations Act. It will probably take a few weeks to figure out what Congress
did, and I am sure that many members will be surprised as well as many Federal managers.
Thanksgiving feasts will be ruined for some as they digest the full meaning of some
of the words left behind by the departing Congress. |
| Congress also left behind all the basic issues that need to be addressed in the budget.
The tricks used to make the numbers come out will not work again because their
effect is cumulative. For example, putting off outlays by one day to throw them into
the next fiscal year (as can be done with a payday that falls on September 30 - change it
to October 1, those paid do not feel much pain, but there is no need to budget for it this
year) will not work again for FY 2001. Part of the FY 2001 budget is already spent,
making it even more difficult to make the numbers add up next year. Which, in turn,
will require even more clever tricks and emergency declarations. And with the
elections at the end of the year the pressure will be on to argue even more over how to
make the tricks work or to point them out. |
| So next year will be a repeat, but with more intensity and more cliffhangers. The
year will be different but only in the increasing level of acrimony and disagreement.
There will be one benefit to the year: By November 8, 2000 we may have an
idea as to who won, and what the shape of the discourse will be in 2001 for FY 2002. |
| I hope all will have a good Thanksgiving. And if you have to read the
appropriations acts and reconcile them, you have my sympathies. |
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November 15, 1999 - More on Waste and its
Causes - Infrastructure is the Problem/Only in America
| Last week's press reports brought more on waste and what it really is.
The Washington Post, on page 1 on November 9, 1999 reported
"Mississippi Awash in Federal Largess," to the tune of $513.7 million for FY
2000. Concurrently, Government Executive (and others) reported that
Senator Thompson had found Federal program waste in the many billions. These two
stories provide a good picture of what is "waste." Only a little analysis
is needed.
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| The half a billion in largess for one state was but one example of what
"earmarks" can accomplish. The Post reported projects ranging
from a down payment of $375 million for a $1.5 billion helicopter carrier that the
military services had not requested (but which assured jobs for a shipyard in Mississippi)
to some costing a few tens of thousands of dollars. These projects have been all
defended by the Mississippi congressional delegation and the beneficiaries of the funds as
essential and for good projects. I am sure that they are good projects, and
therefore not wasteful, but they were not part of the budget request and are questionable
as to their utility in a budget that is constrained (as all budgets are) and in which
choices have to be made. This simply reflects that the choice was made not to make
the hard choices that have to be made if you are going to live within a budget. And
the way it all stays within a semblance of budget discipline is by pretending that the
"earmarks" do not increase overall amounts appropriated - they simply displace
other, unidentified work, which is presumed to be less important. Which brings us to
the next item reported.
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| Senator Thompson sent letters to the heads of major agencies, pointing
out that GAO and others had found many instances of "waste" and that government
funds had been expended without justification or inappropriately. The total is in
the tens of billions. A very impressive figure, and obviously something that needs
to be addressed right away. A good case can be made that the responsible
"bureaucrats" need to clean up their act, and get with the program.
Shameful! The Senator instructed the agency heads to fix the problem.
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| But what are these wasteful expenditures? What causes them?
It turns out that most of the amount is related to improper Medicare
payments. Most of the "waste" is related to deficient accounting and
information systems, i.e., to obsolete infrastructure. And where are the budget
allocations to fix the infrastructure problems? The Senator does not speak to this
point. I am sure that most of the problems are traceable to "earmarks" and
other cuts (such as the "inconsequential" 1% that Congress is pushing) that
displaced the essential work and funding needed to keep program infrastructures up
to date so no "waste" would take place. Funding a large number of unneeded
projects that are viewed as the prerogative of Members of Congress does have an adverse
effect on agencies. Year after year the political leadership ignores the "nuts
and bolts" of government for political gain (and the Executive is also guilty of
this), directly resulting in wasting the taxpayers' money.
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| But it is a beautiful system - you get credit for your earmarks (which,
after all, benefit your constituents) and you get credit for discovering "waste"
created by your own actions of the past! Only in America.
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November 7, 1999 - Elections will tell who won. Time to focus
on operating planning and FY 2001 budget.
| The November 2000 election, FY 2000 operating planning, and the FY 2001 budget request
are interrelated. The BIG ISSUE on the political scene is the next Presidential and
Congressional elections, and everything is done with this in mind. No action is
taken, no deal is cut, no veto issued, no money provided or withheld without the elections
in mind. Who is the winner in all this will be known on November 8, 2000. |
| The FY 2000 remaining issues are being addressed with how they will play out next year.
Positions are being staked out on who can be blamed for dipping into the Social
Security "surplus." At the same time, local projects are funded
(earmarked) to help the incumbents; others are funded to deflect or avoid blame (e.g., Wye
River accords). |
| The FY 2000 operating plans are also being developed with the election firmly in sight.
This is an opportunity for the Administration to make sure that whatever happens
through agency operations supports its election strategy. After all, most of what
the Federal government does that leads to the elections will be funded in FY 2000.
There are only five weeks and a couple of days between the close of FY 2000 and election
day. FY 2001 funding plays little role in the elections. The debate on FY 2001
budgets and appropriations will play a role, but not the actual money spent as a result of
the appropriations. |
| The FY 2001 budge submissions will be the last full Clinton budget that will not be
"dead on arrival" - it will set the stage for the Democratic presidential bid as
well as provide for a "Clinton Legacy." (This is probably too much to
expect from a budget, but this is the way it is.) President Clinton's last chance
for setting the agenda in a way that he can have some control over it and what Congress
does is with his February 2000 submission of the budget request. This will be the
last budget for which he will be able to negotiate and use his veto power to implement his
policies. Even in this he will have limited power: The Congress elected in
November will be able to change whatever deals he cuts shortly after he leaves office in
January 2001. |
| It is time to get back to implementing programs made possible by the money made
available by appropriations, and to start to figure out what the next year will bring -
perhaps another repeat of CRs, threats of closures, etc. Only the election itself
has a chance of changing this prospect for 2001. |
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