The Government Performance and Results Act calls on agencies to estimate the results they expect for the tax dollars they spend. But few agencies can make that connection, the General Accounting Office said Thursday.
So-called performance budgeting, in which budget requests are tied to performance expectations, has been slow to take off, GAO's Paul Posner, director of budget issues, testified before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology. Instead, most agencies-as well as Congress and the administration-link budget requests more to expenses (such as salaries, travel and equipment) than to the intended results.
"Although the process of budgeting is inherently an exercise of political choice in which performance information can be one but not the only factor underlying ultimate decisions, many governments have recognized that systematic presentation of performance information alongside budget amounts will improve budget decisionmaking," Posner testified.
Under the Results Act, the Office of Management and Budget was supposed to set up performance budgeting pilot projects, in which agencies would experiment with ways to present Congress with budget requests that included performance goals. The pilots were supposed to run in 1998 and 1999. But when OMB sought volunteer agencies for the pilots, no agency raised its hand.
Deidre Lee, OMB's acting deputy director for management, said agencies told her office that they were not ready to tie budget requests to performance goals because they were still working on developing performance measures and budget structures. Agencies also were concerned about being in the spotlight-and about members of Congress using performance information as a reason to slash their budgets.
However, Lee said pilot agencies will be selected for the FY 2001 budget cycle. Agencies will experiment with different ways of presenting their budget requests, such as showing how different levels of funding would affect program outcomes.
Subcommittee Chairman Steve Horn, R-Calif., invited several agencies that have experimented with performance budgeting to testify.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for example, estimated in its fiscal 1999 budget and performance plan that preventing any accidents from occurring at civilian nuclear reactors would cost $211 million.
OMB will submit a report to Congress in March 2001 reviewing the federal government's performance budgeting experiences.