FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 19, 2007
Contact: OMB Communications, 202-395-7254
OMB: PART Assessments Improve Transparency and Accountability
Washington, DC — The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today announced that the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) has helped increased transparency and accountability. The most recent PART results and assessment scores can be found at: www.Expectmore.gov.
Over the past six years, more than 1000 programs (or 98 percent of the budget), accounting for $2.6 trillion dollars in federal spending, have been assessed. The latest assessments show 78 percent of programs assessed are considered “performing”, up from 75 percent in 2006. Of the programs being assessed for the first time, 77 percent were rated as performing and 60 percent are effective or moderately effective.
“Our ultimate goal is to make programs work better,” said OMB Deputy Director for Management Clay Johnson. “The PART holds agencies accountable for achieving results and making government more effective. Today, we have more information about what works and what doesn’t than ever before, and we expect agencies will continue to improve as agencies, the Administration, and Congress make greater use about this information.”
Recent examples of how greater use of performance information has driven improvements in agency programs include:
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA): The HIDTA program improved the way it measures success by implementing a system for tracking and analyzing performance data. Using this information, more drug trafficking organizations were dismantled for less money. In 2005, 2,183 Drug Trafficking Organizations were dismantled for $80,000 each. By 2006, 2,332 were dismantled for $76,000 each.
Administration on Aging: The Administration on Aging (AoA) improved its outreach and services to elderly Americans who suffer from disease and disability. The number of States serving elderly individuals living below the poverty level significantly increased from eight in 2003 to 20 in 2005. Over 300,000 elderly and disabled individuals, who due to their physical conditions would be living in nursing homes, can continue to live in their own homes and stay connected to their communities. In 2003, this number totaled around 280,000.
This year’s release of PART assessments was moved to September so agencies and OMB could use this more up-to-date information in development of the President’s Budget. “While never the only factor in decisions about program budgets,” said Johnson, “performance should be an increasingly important factor.”
PART results, the evidence on which they are based, the results each program achieves, and the amount of money spent and requested for each program are all posted on ExpectMore.gov.
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