High-priority performance goals don’t draw additional budget dollars

In a June 2009 memo asking federal agencies to identify their high-priority performance goals, the Office of Management and Budget said these should be "significant challenges unlikely to be overcome without a concerted focus of agency resources." On Friday, OMB's deputy director for management made it clear that agencies have not received additional funding in the Obama administration's proposed fiscal 2011 budget to meet these goals.

"These are ambitious, mission-focused goals to be accomplished within existing resources," Jeffrey Zients said. "The overall goal, if you will, is to do more with less. We expect agencies to do a better job of deploying existing resources to what's most important." Zients said he was confident agencies have sufficient resources to accomplish the high-priority goals.

Overall, Zients said there was more performance information in the fiscal 2011 budget than ever before.

Some of the key performance initiatives he highlighted in a conference call with reporters involved contracting reform and the deployment of information technology. He touted the IT Dashboard, where agencies report on the progress of technology initiatives, as an example of focusing on metrics that matter and using the information to make program decisions. The Veterans Affairs Department, he noted, halted 45 IT projects after information from the dashboard showed them to be behind schedule or over budget. Twelve of the programs will be terminated.

Zients also said the budget reflects the administration's commitment to reducing improper payments by $20 billion during the next three years. Programs with the biggest rates of improper payments must designate a Senate-confirmed official to "own" reduction targets, and the administration will help create pilot programs to reduce improper payments at the state level.

OMB also is framing personnel management as a performance issue.

"High-performing government depends on committed, engaged and well-prepared employees," Zients said. "If you improve people management, you in turn improve program management."

To that end, the budget includes provisions to reduce hiring time, improve applicant satisfaction, and boost the quality and timeliness of background investigations.

"We've got to get the best bang for every single taxpayer dollar the government spends," he said. "We've focused since day one on ways to change the culture of government to make it faster, smarter and more effective."