White House report touts management success stories

The President's Management Council on Friday published its annual report on governmentwide efforts to improve program performance, this time emphasizing agency success stories over specific grades on a traffic-light-style management score card.

The report, released by the Office of Management and Budget, reviewed the government's efforts to meet the goals laid out in the President's Management Agenda. It is a supplement to the administration's quarterly score cards assessing agency management accomplishments.

OMB Deputy Director for Management Clay Johnson said this year's focus on success stories reflected President Bush's interest in knowing how improvements in agencies' ratings translate into program enhancements.

The new emphasis does not represent a retreat from the goal of increasing agencies' overall grades on the score card, Johnson said, especially in the areas of e-government and financial management, where there is the most room for progress.

"Our focus and priority on going to yellow and going to green are still the same," Johnson said. "We anticipate there being significantly more green and yellow and significantly less red at this time next year. And we're not going to do that by standing at parade rest."

He said the president, in meeting with the council to discuss the report, indicated that he appreciates the "dirty business" of management improvement, and described the "day-in, day-out slogging it out in the trenches" as important, if not high profile.

"It's important to measure results so we know we're doing our job," President Bush told the council. "It's also important to measure results to determine whether or not the taxpayers' money is being spent wisely."

In one of the few high-level statistics included in the report, the council, made up of agency officials that serve in a position comparable to that of a chief operating officer, reported that 73 percent of federal programs now are focusing on and achieving clear goals, up from 45 percent in 2003.

The report described an administration goal of saving $50 billion annually through enhancements to performance and efficiency, and highlighted examples of programs that have reported improvements.

A Social Security Administration initiative to increase the use of information technology and reform business processes for the handling of disability and retirement benefits yielded $159 million in savings during fiscal 2005, according to the report.

In the area of personnel management, the report highlighted the Homeland Security Department's success in providing professional development skills training for managers.

The council also noted that a consolidation of financial management systems at the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development is projected to save $20 million over 10 years.

The report cited successes among the administration's e-government initiatives, though Johnson said he and Bush did not discuss the push-back from members of Congress that has hindered many of the projects from moving forward at the pace and funding levels the administration would like to see.