Agencies show modest management improvements

Ten federal agencies earned better grades on this quarter's score card from the Office of Management and Budget than they earned in the previous ratings.

Under OMB's score card, green indicates success, yellow means mixed results, and red means unsatisfactory.

Six agencies improved on at least two measures. The Labor Department earned green scores, the highest rating, for its financial performance and e-government initiatives, both of which were rated yellow, the middle rating, in the June quarter results.

The State Department went from yellow to green for its e-government and budget and performance efforts. The General Services Administration improved from yellow to green for its competitive sourcing and from red, the lowest rating, to yellow for its e-government and budget and performance integration efforts.

The Energy and Labor departments now have green ratings on four of the five measures. None of the scores declined, and 17 out of the 26 rated agencies received red scores for financial management. The Smithsonian received red scores across all categories.

The quarterly score card measures 26 major agencies' progress on President Bush's five main initiatives: strategic management of human capital, competitive sourcing, improved financial performance, expanded electronic government, and budget and performance integration. The method of measuring improvements has shown steady gains across all five areas since June 2002, when it was implemented by the Bush administration.

The progress can partly be attributed to the focus provided by Bush's five initiatives, said Howard Rohm, director of the Balanced Scorecard Institute, which teaches public and private sector managers how to apply the concept. "There's an immediate benefit of focusing attention on a few things you want to accomplish," he said, noting the adage, "What gets measured, gets done."

In addition to rating agencies' status, OMB also rates their progress, where scores tend to be higher. All 26 rated agencies achieved green scores for progress in human capital management and most have reached green for budget and performance integration and e-government.

Clay Johnson, OMB's deputy director for management, said in a news release that Bush congratulated the agency for "holding ourselves and our people accountable for doing what we say we're going to do." In the future, Johnson expects to see savings of $5 billion per year with the elimination of illegitimate payments and $1 billion per year in taxpayer savings from competitive sourcing.

"You're seeing agencies… beginning the difficult process of getting their hands around these problems," said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington-based nonprofit organization. It's difficult, he noted, because agencies are forced to deal with dramatic change at once. The Homeland Security Department, for example, was only formed a year-and-a-half ago.

"It's like driving down the highway at 60 miles per hour and retooling your engine at the same time," Stier said.