Grades Are In

For the management reform program he has pursued since taking office, President Bush earns a solid B for effort and a slightly lower grade, C+ to B-, for results.

That's the verdict rendered by nine knowledgeable observers I consulted in early July. My public administration expert (PAX) panel included five professors of government and four other experts who have spent years serving in and advising federal agencies.

All in all, these are respectable grades, earned in a field of endeavor where results are very difficult to achieve and effort is met by passive resistance, or outright opposition. The PAX panel was asked to rate the five planks of the President's Management Agenda. Here are the composite results:

Our nine panelists also evaluated the Bush administration on overall management of the government during the past three-and-a-half years. Again, the administration earned a B for effort, while its grade for results improved slightly, to B-.

Together with the objective journalistic assessment of the management agenda Amelia Gruber provides in our cover story, the subjective grading exercise suggests a few conclusions about the Bush record. One is that the administration deserves credit for elevating management on Washington's agenda. The early decision to focus White House and agency attention on a limited number of topics was a more disciplined approach than the Clinton administration took with its "reinventing government" program. Office of Management and Budget leaders have taken their task seriously, helping Bush to what I would agree is a solid B grade.

It is more difficult to assess results-or to attribute what progress is being made to the centralized PMA agenda. There has been incremental human capital improvement, most importantly with the new personnel systems now emerging at the Defense and Homeland Security departments. Most governmentwide e-government initiatives haven't been very successful, but breakthroughs have occurred in some agencies, as with the recent conversion of food stamps to an all-electronic format. Competitive sourcing has been controversial, but there is little doubt that government must continue to search for the kinds of savings the program can generate.

Encouraging, I believe, are the good grades the PAX panel gives in the areas of financial management and use of performance data in budgeting decisions. Priority-setting in budget planning, and better financial controls, will be required of agency leadership in the new era of red ink upon which we have embarked.

Our exercise does not address what's likely to be the most significant influence on federal programs in the coming decade: the huge federal deficits that have emerged during the Bush presidency. On this, I suspect the PAX panel would give the administration quite low marks. But here, and also on national security affairs, it's the public, not our experts, who will render the important judgment on Election Day three months hence.