Transportation: The Challenge of Showing Progress
Recovery Act funding is helping Pennsylvania make a dent in its sizable bridge problem. We’ve mentioned in previous posts that Pennsylvania does a very good job, relative to other states, of reporting...
View ArticleA budgetary "revolution" in France
Considered a "revolution" in France, the Framework Law on Finance Acts (La Loi Organique sur les Lois de Finance), has a number of striking similarities with the Government Performance and Results Act...
View ArticleUse of Dashboards in Government
When President Barack Obama took office, he said “the question is not whether government is too big or too small but whether it works.” But how do you know what works and what doesn’t? Government...
View ArticleThe Virginia Implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:
In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided a one-time boost in spending to state and local governments of more than $275 billion which was distributed via 65 different new or...
View ArticleStates, Localities Inspire Federal Data-Driven Management
The New York City Police Department launched it vaunted CompSTAT more than a decade ago. This data-driven management approach inspired dozens of other cities and several states to adopt it to run...
View ArticleShared Services: Tracking Performance/Performance Metrics—What Doesn’t Get...
In order to gauge the success of a Shared Services implementation, it is important to collect and track key performance metrics before and after the implementation. It has often been said that what...
View ArticleVirginia’s Implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:...
Magazine edition: Fall/Winter 2011 Edition In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARA) provided a one-time boost in spending to state and local governments of more than $275 billion which...
View ArticleUse of Dashboards in Government
Magazine edition: Fall/Winter 2011 Edition The use of dashboards in federal government agencies increased dramatically following the Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative issued in January...
View ArticleFive Methods for Measuring Unobserved Events: A Case Study of Federal Law...
This report describes the challenges of measuring unobserved events such as tax cheating, drug smuggling, or illegal immigration. Measuring program performance is relatively straightforward in many...
View ArticleConversation with Authors: John Whitley on Five Methods for Measuring...
Promote until: Thu, 11/28/2013Intro text: Mr. Whitley describes the challenges of measuring unobserved events such as tax cheating, drug smuggling, or illegal immigration.
View ArticleIs Moneyball Government the Next Big Thing?
Magazine edition: Spring 2014 Edition Over the last few years, a critical mass of stakeholders has quietly worked to build evidence-based decision-making into government. In early December 2013, I...
View ArticleYouth shall be served. . .
The Recovery Act included about $1.2 billion to fund jobs for disadvantaged young people, with a healthy portion going to the 2009 Summer Employment Program. The numbers are impressive. About 250,000...
View ArticlePhilip Joyce
Philip Joyce is Professor of Management, Finance and Leadership in the Maryland School of Public Policy. Professor Joyce’s teaching and research interests include public budgeting, performance...
View ArticleJonathan Walters
Jonathan Walters is a staff correspondent for Governing magazine. He has covered state and local public policy and administration for the past 20 years, writing on topics ranging from civil service...
View ArticleConflicting goals, weatherization and a little about soccer
One of our very favorite Governing columns that we've written over the years was about performance measurement and girls' soccer. As we watched our daughter play, we noticed we were seeing some of the...
View ArticleA new report on measuring energy savings
With roughly $25 billion flowing out of the stimulus package to various energy efficiency programs, there's a compelling need to measure and evaluate energy savings. A new report from the Alliance to...
View ArticleCash for Clunkers: Digging Deeper
The debate over the economic benefits of last summer’s “Cash for Clunkers” program continues. Recently, the White House blog and Edmunds.com exchanged salvos in the argument. But the economic...
View ArticleLong-term thinking in New Mexico
Part of our incentive for starting this blog was to shed more light on the actual performance benefits of stimulus dollars, as opposed to just “jobs, jobs, jobs,” in the words of the GAO’s Stan...
View ArticleCash for Clunkers: Measuring Performance
Beyond good information about that program, this report impressively discusses general questions regarding stimulus implementation and performance measurement. The GAO recently released a report...
View ArticlePinning Down Performance
Highlights on measuring results from the recent Government Accountability Office report Performance measurement and evaluation have often received short shrift in reports about the Recovery Act. We...
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