Seizing the Moment on GPRA

(This might well be the case with a near-even split in the Senate.) He will also leave behind GPRA performance plans that codify his administration's program goals and measures. Further, in the fall, the agencies published a new round of strategic, multi-year GPRA plans that will provide a detailed history of how the Clinton administration viewed long-term goals and measures for current law and policies.

These short- and long-term projections offer a performance baseline that no new President or Congress has ever seen before. If the President and Congress use them when they devise and promote their new policies, they will be able to establish unprecedented clarity of the President's policies, Congress' actions, and the program and spending initiatives that the two finally agree on. This clarity will facilitate public scrutiny. The key is the recognition that GPRA does not exist in a policy vacuum.

Many GPRA advocates wish that government performance planning and reporting were free of political influence and judgment. As Sgt. Joe Friday would say, "Just deal with the facts, ma'am." But data rarely are sufficient by themselves to drive policy. GPRA plans, just like budgets, first reflect presidential judgment and preferences, and then, after congressional enactment, they reflect policy.

The new President developed a long list of ideas during his campaign that will constitute his initial agenda and his new budget. Given his background and statements, he also will care a lot about how well those ideas are turned into policy and managed by his appointees and the agencies. GPRA gives the new President a ready-made tool for arranging his ideas into clear, long-term and year-by-year goals with performance measures he is willing to be judged on.

The President can direct his budget director and agency appointees to use GPRA processes to flesh out-and communicate-the way his administration will run the government, how his administration will interact with Congress on major goals, and how the administration, Congress and the public should judge performance. The revised strategic plans that his new policies surely will require in virtually ever agency will be his, as will the revised annual performance plans that should certainly accompany his 2002 budget submission.

There is a risk here. All of us who have participated in the evolution of GPRA implementation since 1993 know that it varies widely across agencies. Lean on it too hard and it may founder at agencies that have yet to tie it effectively to program management or merge it successfully with budget and policy development and assessment. If the process founders under this pressure, so, too, may some important policy initiatives. If the President's appointees in each agency don't include a solid cadre of people who are comfortable with managing large, complex organizations, even the best GPRA processes will fail.

It's a leap of faith to expect all agencies to take a giant step by February toward the actual use of GPRA to guide day-to-day management and ongoing policy review in light of actual performance. GPRA processes may not be perfectly designed and implemented at every agency this year, or perhaps any year. But if GPRA does not emerge early in the new administration as a central means by which the President and Congress set program goals and performance measures, we will miss a chance to achieve significant improvement in government performance. It may not come again.

Despite its advantage of being law rather than policy, GPRA could fade away as quickly as its predecessors did if this golden opportunity is missed. The new President must take the first step by using GPRA as his central management tool to achieve program goals. If he does, Congress will likely use it as well. And a new era of orderly focus on government performance will be upon us. This can only be good for the public and its confidence in government.