OMB should fine-tune program evaluation strategy, panelists say

The Bush administration should refine its strategy for evaluating the performance of federal programs, panelists testified at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Office of Management and Budget evaluators should assess all programs designed to meet a common goal so that analysts can make more meaningful comparisons across programs, said Maurice McTigue, a professor at the George Mason University's Mercatus Center, in testimony before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Efficiency and Financial Management. Lawmakers could then make better decisions about which programs deliver the best results to taxpayers, and which could be eliminated, he said.

The administration currently reviews a sampling of federal programs, but does not necessarily rate all programs designed to meet any given goal. For instance, OMB might review one program to improve adult literacy, but not another.

To help President Bush formulate his fiscal 2005 budget request, OMB evaluators reviewed 40 percent of federal programs using a 25- to 30-part questionnaire called the Program Assessment Rating Tool. Based on answers to the questionnaire, OMB designated each of the programs as effective, moderately effective, adequate, ineffective, or results not demonstrated.

While poor grades on the PART did not necessarily lead to proposed budget cuts in 2005, Bush did recommend eliminating 13 programs that did not perform well. These programs were either duplicative or showed little hope of future improvements, according to evaluators. Other programs earning poor PART ratings actually received funding increases in Bush's budget request.

The administration expects to rate an additional 20 percent of federal programs each year, and plans to evaluate all programs by the fiscal 2008 budget cycle.

Rather than adding a random sampling of programs to the evaluation list each year, OMB could target programs in high-priority areas, Paul Posner, managing director of federal budget issues at the General Accounting Office, told lawmakers. "By reaching agreement on areas in which evaluations are most essential, decision-makers can help ensure that limited resources are applied wisely," he testified.

The subcommittee is holding a series of hearings to critique the PART and determine whether legislation is needed to institutionalize some form of regular program evaluations.

McTigue and Posner cautioned lawmakers against drafting a bill that would require PART evaluations. The PART is merely an evolving tool, McTigue said. "It is the result or the consequence of using the tool that is important, not the tool itself," he testified. "Codifying [the PART] presumes that the process has now reached a level of excellence that will never be improved upon."

If the subcommittee drafts legislation requiring program reviews, the legislation should allow OMB to develop specific tools for conducting the evaluations, McTigue said. For instance, the subcommittee could draft a bill that requires OMB to compare the efficacy of programs designed to meet similar goals.

Lawmakers are aware that the PART is not perfect, and are not necessarily planning to draft a bill mandating that particular method of program assessments, a subcommittee staff member said Monday. The subcommittee is more interested in the general idea of making program evaluations permanent, and is holding hearings partly to gather input on the form these evaluations should take.