Program review bill to be fine-tuned

House Government Reform Committee staff members are tying up a few odds and ends before seeking wider interest in legislation requiring the Office of Management and Budget to review the performance of federal programs at least every five years.

The committee approved the Program Assessment and Results Act (H.R. 3826) by voice vote on Thursday. But several recommendations from House Democrats emerged, and Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., author of the legislation, wants to address them before seeking a companion bill in the Senate, or moving the measure to the House floor.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., asked Platts to modify the legislation to prevent OMB from ceding control over reviews to contractors and to clarify rules concerning the treatment of classified program information. The language proposed by Van Hollen would define program evaluation as an "inherently governmental" function off-limits for outsourcing.

The 1993 Government Performance and Results Act includes an almost identical provision. "The idea is that when you're setting performance goals and measuring performance…that kind of goal-setting and that kind of evaluation should be performed by a public servant," Van Hollen explained in a phone interview Friday.

The Maryland Democrat's main objective is to ensure that Platts' legislation, introduced as an amendment to GPRA, carries through existing safeguards. But Van Hollen said the Bush administration's push to let contractors bid on federal jobs crossed his mind. "Certainly that's why I have heightened concern about this," he said.

Platts generally supports Van Hollen's recommendations, but has yet to approve the details, a committee staff member said Friday. The modifications looked fine on the surface, the staffer said, but needed a more thorough reading.

For instance, Platts wants to be certain that agencies have the option of hiring private companies to help design program performance metrics. "You don't want to limit the ability of an agency to contract with [a company] that can provide a system or software that allows a better evaluation," the staffer said.

The proposed modifications provide this flexibility, Van Hollen said. "The idea is to make sure the primary decision-making authority rests with public employees."

Several other Democrats voiced concerns Thursday during the House Government Reform Committee's deliberations over Platts' bill. Members worried that OMB could use the program evaluations to serve political ends, and said the legislation fails to provide for public input on program reviews.

But these criticisms are largely unfounded, the subcommittee staff member said. "The real meat of the legislation is what we call cross-cutting, which is to take similar programs at different agencies and review them in a basket...if you have 16 [comparable] programs, they can be reviewed in a year, and you can say 'these work, these don't,'" the staff member explained. If the power to evaluate programs resided within agencies rather than OMB, "You'd lose the ability to do any cross-cutting."

Platts already incorporated language into the legislation providing a "mechanism for interested persons to comment on the programs being assessed and the criteria [being] used," the staff member noted.