Making Performance Reporting Useful

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:52
“OMB to transform performance reviews,” reports Federal News Radio writer Meg Beasley. She writes that: “OMB will work with the Performance Improvement Council (PIC) to shift from a performance assessment approach that focuses on simply gathering information to an approach that focuses on using that information to improve agency functioning.”
 
According to the

Checklist of Obama Cost-Cutting Initiatives

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:50
It may be hot in Washington this summer, but agency leaders -- especially budget officers -- are facing a blizzard of memos from the White House on actions they are expected to undertake to pare back spending. Last week, Tim Kauffman and Tom Spoth wrote an article in Federal Times listing out some of the directives, but more were added before the week was out. Here’s a handy checklist (and if you have more, please add them!):

Do Not Pay List

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:49

 

MN Creates Collaborative Governance Council

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:48
The Minnesota Legislature recently passed a bi-partisan bill that was signed into law to create a Collaborative Governance Council that will increase collaboration between state and local government.  Might this be an inspiration for the federal government?
 
The law creates a 12-member council to develop recommendations to increase governmental collaboration by:
  • reviewing laws and rules that slow collaboration efforts;
  • us

House Passes Results Act Amendments

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:46

According to the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, this bill “eliminates waste, promotes high-performing, results-oriented government.”

The Mouse That Roared

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:45
The Administrative Conference of the U.S.

Using Open Gov to Identify Low-Priority Programs

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:43
As a separate exercise from the Budget Guidance for FY 2012 released earlier this week, OMB director Peter Orzag issued additional guidance asking agencies to identify low priority programs:
 
“Your agency is required to identify the programs and subprograms that have the lowest impact on your agency’s mission and constitute at least five percent

OMB's FY 2012 Budget Guidance

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:41

OMB released specific guidance to agencies on how they should prepare their budget submissions to OMB, which are due September 13. The key element being that agencies should submit requests that would be 5 percent below what was estimated for FY 2012 when OMB submitted the president’s FY 2011 budget in February. There have been good stories on this in the Washington Post and

Five Ways Twitter Can Adapt Itself for Government

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:40

Twitter is set to hire its first employee in Washington, DC, a Government Liaison.  That’s great news.
 

Gov 2.0 Requires Us to Update Our Code

Submitted by on Thu, 12/21/2017 - 13:38
Last week, I talked Gov 2.0 with two Senior Research Fellows at the Mercatus Center, Jerry Brito and Veronique de Rugy.  As advocates of transparency, we were all in agreement that the trend lines over the past two years are good, but that current offerings are woefully short of the mark—and much less than was promised during the last Presidential campaign.

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