Two Sides to the Story

There are always two sides to every story, depending on who you ask. Whether you’re in high school, a 30-year-old mother or comfortably nestled in a retirement home, there is always point/counterpoint to the same issue.

Presidents and their supporters are hardly immune. Since beginning his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama has criticized President George W. Bush’s Management Agenda (PMA) as well as the Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) used to measure the performance of federal programs. In his Performance Plan released last fall, Obama cited critics who called the PART “insular, arbitrary and used to promote ideological goals rather than true performance standards.” He also cited a Government Accountability Office survey that found that among federal managers, only 26 percent used PART to make management decisions.

Without delving in too deep, it is easy to guess that Obama, being a Democrat and not a Bush supporter would find plenty wrong with the PMA and PART. He was able to cite statistics and surveys to validate his opinions. In defense of his performance management tools, is Bush able to do the same thing?

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released three reports that illustrate if and how performance and performance measurement improved during Bush’s eight years in office. They found that a comparison of the first and last management agenda score cards showed dramatic improvement. The first evaluation put most agencies at red across the board, with a few yellows and only one green. However, on the most recent assessment, four agencies earned greens in all five categories.

And in a dramatic shift from previous years, the OMB released the first-ever “Performance Report of the Federal Government,” a collection of brief performance updates from 24 federal agencies. According to Government Executive magazine, the goal was to provide basic information in a more user-friendly format that citizens could understand, said Clay Johnson, OMB deputy director for management.

“One of the things I think the next administration will inherit is more transparency about what works and what doesn’t in federal government than has ever existed before, so [they have] the information they need,” Johnson said.

Posted in Performance Wire