Better integration of the Government Performance and Results Act, the President’s Management Agenda/Budget and Performance Integration, and using the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Program Assessment Rating Tool is a challenge. Justine Rodriguez, OMB’s Deputy Associate Director, Economic Policy, has embarked on work to strengthen the analytical foundations for agency performance budgets. Specifically, she has outlined an idea for case studies to highlight the connections among:

• A specific strategic goal and its outcomes;
  
  
• The programs that support it and their outcomes;
  
  
• The relationships within that portfolio of programs;
  
  
• The strategies, outputs and intermediate outcomes of each program; and
  
  
• The relationships between programs and state/local governments and other participants

This Research Team is meeting to discuss Justine's ideas and other suggestions for strengthening performance budgets. Members might draft such a brief study for one of their agency goals and share ideas on how seeing the connections clearly could improve budget justifications and management. The team also wants to work with congressional appropriators to develop performance budgets that will be useful to them as well as agency management.

Brief studies were developed and presented to date by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Strategic Planning Office. Team participants also are from other U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and Grant Thornton.

If you are interested in participating in this Research Team, please contact us using our online Volunteer Registration form.