[Senate Hearing 111-633]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-633
GETTING TO BETTER GOVERNMENT: FOCUSING ON PERFORMANCE
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HEARING
before the
FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION, FEDERAL SERVICES, AND
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
of the
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JON TESTER, Montana ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
PAUL G. KIRK, JR., Massachusetts
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION,
FEDERAL SERVICES, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
John Kilvington, Staff Director
Wendy R. Anderson, Professional Staff Member
Bryan Parker, Staff Director and General Counsel to the Minority
Deirdre G. Armstrong, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statement:
Page
Senator Carper............................................... 1
Prepared statements:
Senator Carper............................................... 33
Senator McCain............................................... 36
WITNESSES
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Jeffrey D. Zients, Deputy Director for Management and Chief
Performance Officer, Office of Management and Budget........... 4
Bernice Steinhardt, Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government
Accountability Office.......................................... 6
W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security................... 19
Phea S. Suh, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and
Budget, U.S. Department of the Interior........................ 21
Michelle Snyder, Acting Deputy Administrator and Deputy Chief
Operating Officer, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services................... 22
Paul L. Posner, Director, Public Administration Program,
Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason
University..................................................... 25
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Fugate, W. Craig:
Testimony.................................................... 19
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Posner, Paul L.:
Testimony.................................................... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 89
Snyder, Michelle:
Testimony.................................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 74
Steinhardt, Bernice:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 40
Suh, Rhea S.:
Testimony.................................................... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 71
Zients, Jeffrey D.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 37
APPENDIX
``Building a Better Government Performance System,'' June 2009,
Sponsored by Accenture Institute for Public Service Value,
Georgetown Public Policy Institute, OMB Watch, submitted by
Senator Carper................................................. 103
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Zients................................................... 165
Ms. Steinhardt............................................... 170
Mr. Fugate................................................... 177
Ms. Suh...................................................... 179
Ms. Snyder................................................... 181
Mr. Posner................................................... 188
GETTING TO BETTER GOVERNMENT: FOCUSING ON PERFORMANCE
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, Federal Services,
and International Security,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:36 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R.
Carper, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for
joining us today. Our colleagues are going to be drifting in
and out. We are working on the interior appropriations on the
Senate floor, so there is a lot going on today. But as you all
know, 8 months ago, we inaugurated a new President, and since
coming into office, President Obama has faced--I think it is an
understatement--a complicated set of challenges, both domestic
and international.
For example, our new President has faced soaring Federal
deficits projected to reach some $9 trillion over the next
decade. He has inherited an economic crisis that has required
unprecedented international cooperation to jump-start the
world's economies. He has inherited dangerous security threats
in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where I visited recently, and
Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, among others.
Those are just a few of the exceptional challenges that our
country, including our government, needs to be prepared to
address. As the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has
pointed out, the Federal Government's performance and the
results that it achieves have a profound effect on the most
important issues to the American people, for example, issues
like creating jobs, providing better health care for less
money, overseeing financial markets, reducing pollution,
reducing the threat of climate change and global warming, and
the challenge of sending additional troops to war to fight
against terrorism.
While the strength of our democracy rests on the ability of
our government to deliver its promises to our people, we in
Congress have a responsibility to be judicious stewards of the
resources that taxpayers invest in America. We have a
responsibility to ensure those resources are managed honestly,
transparently, and effectively.
It has been more than 16 years since Congress passed the
Government Performance and Results Act to help us better manage
our finite resources and improve the effectiveness and delivery
of Federal programs. Since that time, agencies across the
Federal Government have developed and implemented strategic
plans and routinely generated a tremendous amount of
performance data. Are Federal agencies using their performance
data to get better results?
Producing information does not by itself improve
performance. The GAO has shown time and again that Federal
managers have much more performance information available today
than they did a decade ago. However, the GAO findings also
reveal that Federal managers have shown little or no progress
in increasing their use of performance information to manage
results.
Several years ago, Senator Tom Coburn and I asked the GAO
to examine how performance information was being used to better
manage Federal agencies and how managers could employ it more
frequently for better results.
We also asked the GAO to consider the Clinton
Administration's implementation of the Government Performance
and Results Act (GPRA) and the Bush Administration's
implementation of the Performance Assessment Rating Tool
(PART).
Today we look forward to GAO's discussion of its final
report, particularly key management practices that can promote
the use of performance information in decisionmaking to improve
results.
We have a new Administration, with fresh ideas and a
renewed commitment to getting results. To demonstrate that
commitment, President Obama announced earlier this year the
creation of a position for a chief performance officer, a post
designed to improve government efficiency and reform budget
practices. I am delighted that the Chief Performance Officer,
Jeff Zients, is here today to discuss how his team will assist
and motivate Federal agencies to improve the effectiveness,
efficiency, and transparency of our government by using
performance information well.
I would like for us to focus our discussion today on
several crucial questions.
One, how will the Obama Administration design and structure
its new performance improvement and analysis framework?
Two, what strategies are necessary to support a government-
wide transformation to a more results-oriented and
collaborative culture?
Three, for agencies that appear to be using performance
information the least, to what extent do they employ practices
GAO has identified that could facilitate or encourage the use
of performance information?
Four, how can Federal agencies make better use of
performance information to improve results?
And, five, what are some specific things that we in
Congress can do to bring about a greater focus on performance
in the Federal Government?
And, finally, how can we use performance information to
identify where the Federal Government is not performing well so
that we can make better decisions about where we should be
putting our resources?
Today we face unparalleled challenges both here and abroad,
and these require a knowledgeable and nimble Federal Government
that can respond effectively. With concerns growing over the
mounting Federal deficit and national debt, the American people
deserve to know that every dollar that they send to Washington
is being used to its utmost potential. Performance information
is an invaluable tool that can ensure just that. If used
effectively, it can help us to identify problems, find
solutions, and develop approaches that improve outcomes and
produce results.
Before I introduce our witnesses, I just want to take a
moment and say that in yesterday's markup in the Finance
Committee on health care reform, I shared with my colleague the
work that this Subcommittee has done, Senator Coburn and myself
and others have done, on improper payments. I shared with them
that earlier in this decade the Congress passed, and President
Bush signed, legislation calling on agencies, requiring
agencies to report improper payments.
Some agencies did and some did not. As time has gone by,
more agencies have subscribed and complied with the reporting
requirement of reporting improper payments. Not all have but
now most have. And we have identified, as of last year, some
$72 billion in improper payments were reported by the agencies
that are complying with the reporting requirements.
I think the record would show that several agencies are not
complying fully. They include, I think, the Department of
Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and a couple of
others--I think Medicaid and Medicare, at least parts of
Medicare.
I shared with my colleagues, as I offered an amendment
yesterday, that it is not enough for us just to identify
improper payments. That is certainly important. It is a start.
We have to report them. We have to reduce them. And we need to
go out and recover monies that have been improperly paid,
especially in overpayments. It is pretty logical.
And we started down that road in one part of Medicare.
About 3 years ago, through private contractors, we basically
said we want you to go out and work in California, Texas, and
Florida to begin to recover overpayments. In some cases,
fraudulent payments were made because of fraud. And the first
year or two, they did not recover much. Last year, they
recovered $700 million.
When the Finance Committee reports out its legislation,
hopefully by the end of this week, that experiment, which was
started in three States, very successfully now, will be
extended to all 50 States to recover, not just Medicare maybe
Part A and B, but also Part C and D. Part D is the prescription
drug program. And we will take the lessons learned there to
also begin going after monies that were overpaid, improperly
paid, fraudulently paid with respect to the Medicaid program.
So some work that actually started in Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) in the previous Administration with input from
this Committee, this Subcommittee, is now about to bear great
fruit, enormous fruit, to not only reduce improper payments but
to begin to recover monies that have been fraudulently or
improperly paid.
So we are starting to realize some success there. We need
to realize a lot of success, and we need to identify success
with all this performance information that we are collecting to
actually use it to get us to where we need to be, and that is
better results in a very challenge environment at home and
abroad.
So we welcome this opportunity today, and in introducing
our witnesses, I mentioned that Jeff Zients, I think his
official title might actually be Deputy Director for Management
at OMB, but he is also the government's first ever performance
officer. And when we are talking about this particular subject,
he is the right person to have here, and we are delighted that
you have made time to join us.
Mr. Zients comes to government with an impressive resume,
having worked for 20 years as a management consultant and
entrepreneur. Mr. Zients also co-founded the Urban Alliance
Foundation, a nonprofit that helps economically disadvantaged
young people obtain year-round internships and job training.
Sitting beside him is Bernice Steinhardt, the Director for
Strategic Issues at the Government Accountability Office where
she is responsible for examining governmentwide management
issues. For over 9 years, she has led GAO's efforts in
strategic planning and helped to develop the organization's
first strategic plan. She has also held a number of positions
at GAO, including Director of the Public Health Issues Group.
And she has served as Associate Director for Energy, Natural
Resources, and Science Issues as well as Environmental
Protection Issues.
We thank you both very much for joining us today and for
testifying. I have just been handed a notice that says to
remind the witnesses that they have roughly 5 minutes to speak.
Mr. Zients, why don't you lead us off? And, again, my
thanks to both of you for coming.
TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY D. ZIENTS,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR
MANAGEMENT AND CHIEF PERFORMANCE OFFICER, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT
AND BUDGET
Mr. Zients. Thank you, Senator Carper. I really want to
first thank you in that all of us are spending most of our days
in that intersection of what is urgent and important, and you
have a lot going on. The challenge with this terrain is that it
sometimes does not feel urgent in the moment. But I think it is
extremely important for this government at this point in time,
so your example of improper payments would be a great story on
that front. When you tackled it initially, it probably did not
feel like it was the stuff of instant return or instant
gratification, and now look at the payback. So I am very
appreciative of you carving out this time from a very hectic
schedule to do this.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Zients appears in the Appendix on
page 37.
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Senator Carper. I am delighted and excited to be here.
Thank you.
Mr. Zients. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and
discuss our shared objective, which is increasing the
effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency of government.
Today I want to address my remarks to your questions about
Federal agency use of performance information for
decisionmaking and resource allocation.
As you said, the current fiscal challenge makes it even
more important to maximize the effectiveness of every tax
dollar we spend. We need to search continually for increasingly
effective and efficient ways to get the job done.
To accomplish this, it is not enough for Federal agencies
to produce performance information. The ultimate test of our
performance management efforts is whether or not the
information is actually used, not just by government agencies
but also by Congress, the public, and our service delivery
partners.
Across those 20 years, in the private sector as a CEO and
an adviser to a CEO, I found that leadership measurement and a
motivated workforce together create the foundation for good
performance. I am confident after 3 months the same is true
here in government.
It is my initial sense after the short period of time on
the job that important ground work for governmentwide
performance management has been laid by Congress and previous
Administrations, including, as you said, the Clinton
Administration's implementation of the Government Performance
Results Act, and certain elements of the Bush Administration's
implementation of the PART system.
But too much emphasis was placed historically on producing
performance information for the purpose of complying with
reporting requirements and too little attention paid to
analyzing and acting on this information. It is time to pay far
more attention to the use of Federal performance information as
a powerful performance improvement tool for communicating
priorities, progress, and raising issues, for illuminating what
works and should be continued and what does not work that needs
attention, for motivating the best from our workforce and our
service delivery partners, and for allocating our scarce
resources wisely.
The good news here is that many public and private
organizations have developed successful models for increasing
the use of performance information, and my intention here is to
look for best practices or best examples of what is working in
other governments, the private sector, and in our own Federal
efforts, and apply these practices across the Federal
Government.
The first step in taking on a challenge like this is
putting the right leadership team in place, and I am pleased to
announce a new member of my team, Shelley Metzenbaum, who is
actually in Washington for her first day of work today. She is
a leading expert in performance management with both a
distinguished academic career and a wealth of government
experience. She has authored numerous articles on practical,
effective ways to use performance goals and measurement in
government, and she has served in key leadership positions in
past Administrations in the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and in the State of Massachusetts.
Our performance management agenda is already moving
forward. In this year's spring budget guidance, OMB Director
Orszag asked all Federal agencies to identify a limited number
of high-priority performance goals reflecting the near-term
implementation priorities of each agency's senior managers.
These goals communicate the priority targets that each agency's
leadership hopes to achieve across the next 12 to 24 months.
And once this list is final--we will regularly review with
agencies the progress they are making and the problems they are
encountering and make any mid-course corrections.
We will expect each agency to reach beyond their own
organizational boundaries to get feedback about priorities and
strategies and to enlist expertise and assistance to reach
their targets. Improving the performance of our Federal
programs will require cooperation and contribution from many
places. Ms. Metzenbaum and I will be leading an effort to
develop an improved Federal performance management framework
that aligns these high-priority performance goals with GPRA
performance reporting in many of the program-level performance
metrics that were developed as part of PART.
Our governmentwide performance measurement framework will
be focused on outcomes, and it will allow comparisons across
programs and agencies. It will also show trends across time. We
will use new information technology to make this more feasible,
less cumbersome to access, and, most importantly, to meet our
ultimate goal of more use across the government.
In addition, the Administration is proposing significant
investments in rigorous and independent program evaluations. We
will integrate these efforts into this larger performance
framework. I am confident we will develop a performance
management framework that better serves the needs of agency
managers as well as the public, and Congress' need for Federal
performance transparency.
These steps will go a long way to helping us improve the
effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency of government. This
is a cornerstone of my agenda and one of my highest-priority
performance goals.
I thank the Subcommittee, and you, Senator Carper, for your
belief in improving Federal performance, and I look forward to
working with you, with the other members of today's panels,
with Federal employees across the Nation, and with our service
delivery partners to accomplish this objective.
Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to answer any questions
you have.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much, and I have several
questions, once Ms. Steinhardt has completed her testimony.
Mr. Zients. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much for your testimony and for
being here today.
Ms. Steinhardt, you are recognized. Please proceed. Your
entire statement will be made part of the record for both of
you.
TESTIMONY OF BERNICE STEINHARDT,\1\ DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ISSUES,
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Steinhardt. Thanks very much, Senator Carper, and I,
too, appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Steinhardt appears in the
Appendix on page 40.
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Let me just say first that I was delighted to hear about
Shelley Metzenbaum's joining your team. I think she will be a
great addition, and we look forward to working with both of
you.
Senator Carper. How do you know her or how do you know of
her?
Ms. Steinhardt. She has been very involved in this area of
performance information and management with information for a
long time. She has written a lot about it. We have worked
together in the past. We have relied on her expertise in doing
our own work. So I think she will be enormously valuable here.
Senator Carper. So a pretty good hire?
Ms. Steinhardt. A very good hire. [Laughter.]
Senator Carper. That is good to hear. Thank you.
Ms. Steinhardt. Well done.
Last year, I was here to talk about the first part of the
work that we undertook at your request, which, as you mentioned
before, was based on a governmentwide survey of Federal
managers. And as you said, Senator Carper, we found that while
managers have a lot more information today than they did 10
years ago when we first started doing our surveys, there really
has not been much progress over that period in the extent to
which they use information to make decisions that could lead to
better results.
So to try to figure out what is behind this, we focused the
second part of our efforts on a review of management practices
at the Department of the Interior and at FEMA, whose managers
were relatively low users of performance information compared
to other agencies. And at the same time, we also looked at the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), because they
seemed to have made a good bit of progress in using performance
information over that period, and we wanted to understand what
contributed to that improvement.
What we found was that a number of practices seemed to
account for the difference between those places where
performance information is widely used and those where it is
not. These practices actually may seem obvious. They may seem
like common sense. But, in fact, they are not always present,
and when that is the case, it makes a big difference.
From our past work, we know that several practices are key,
and I will mention just a couple here, and I think Mr. Zients
has alluded to a couple of them as well.
First and foremost is the visible commitment of leadership
to using and communicating that performance information and
performance itself matters; and, second, having performance
information that managers themselves find useful in doing their
work.
CMS actually turned out to be a good example of how these
practices have made a difference. Between 2000 and 2007, the
percentage of CMS managers who said that their top leadership
demonstrated a strong commitment to achieving results went from
46 to 69 percent--quite a big leap.
Senator Carper. Say that one more time.
Ms. Steinhardt. The percentage of managers who said that
their top leadership demonstrated a strong commitment to using
performance information was 49 percent in the year 2000, and it
went up to 69 percent, so more than two-thirds of managers in
2007 viewed their top leadership as being committed to using
performance information.
Nearly all of the CMS officials that we met with credited
this commitment, as well as other key practices, with helping
to achieve better outcomes in the quality of care for nursing
home patients, for one example, as well as in other critical
areas.
By the same token, the absence of these practices had a lot
to do with the situations we encountered at the Interior and at
FEMA. At both agencies, only about a third of the managers
surveyed felt that the agencies' top leadership demonstrated a
strong commitment to achieving results.
In delving further, it was clear that managers in both
agencies had a very strong commitment to their agencies'
missions, but the level of commitment to using performance
information varied greatly. One official in FEMA, for example,
told us that he did not need performance information; he just
relied on conversations with people to know whether or not
things were running well.
At Interior, we found that while the agency was collecting
a lot of performance information, leadership was not
effectively communicating to its managers how, if at all, they
were using that information to achieve better results. Several
Park Service managers that we talked to referred to the
reporting process as ``feeding the beast'' because they got
little or no feedback in response to the information that they
fed upward. And so they assumed that no one in authority
reacted to or acted on the information, and it was not always
useful to the managers themselves either.
At the same time, though, we found that both Interior and
FEMA had pockets of good practices, places in the agencies,
whether in different directorates or locations, where things
were going well. And so our report to you includes several
recommendations to the agencies that are intended to build upon
these good practices.
More widespread adoption of these key management practices
is, of course, an important step to building a more results-
oriented and collaborative culture in the Federal Government.
But beyond this, both the President and the Congress can play
vital roles in setting the tone at the top and communicating to
agency leaders that performance matters.
Given its vantage point, OMB can play a role in sharing
leading practices among agencies and helping those that may
need support to adopt them. But, importantly, OMB can also help
support collaboration among agencies to achieve results in a
number of areas like ensuring the safety of the food supply or
combating terrorism, any number of the challenges that you
mentioned at the outset, Senator Carper, where actions are
required that go beyond the mission of any single agency. So,
in this respect, we have long supported the idea of a
governmentwide strategic plan and an annual performance plan
that is supported by a system of key national indicators, which
together could provide important tools for integrating efforts
across agencies to address the challenging issues that continue
to face our Nation in the 21st Century.
So, with that, I will wrap up my statement and offer my
thanks for your time and concern about these issues. And, of
course, I would be happy to answer any questions.
Senator Carper. Good. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for
being here and for your testimony. A special thanks to GAO for
your responsiveness to the request that Senator Coburn and I
asked a couple of years ago for your help on this, so thank
you.
I am told by Wendy Anderson, who is sitting here behind me,
my senior staff person on the Subcommittee, that you have
mentioned a nursing home example of how managers in performance
information were well utilized. I am going to ask you to take a
minute and tell us that story.
Before I do, I just want to mention, when I think of using
performance information, I go back in time a little bit. As
Governor of Delaware, we decided, along with most other
governors in most other States, to establish vigorous academic
standards about 15 years ago in math, science, English, and
social studies. We began trying to measure objectively student
progress toward those standards to show what they knew and
understood in math, science, English, social studies, and other
subjects.
Then we decided how to use that information to improve
performance, to incentivize students and faculties, teachers,
principals, and superintendents, how to hold folks accountable,
including students, schools, school districts, and teachers.
I probably have been to just about every public school in
Delaware--there are several hundred--and I still go into them
as often as I can, every week or two. I try to go into the
schools where they have done a good job of being a so-so school
in terms of scoring well and showing progress with respect to
academic standards. And I find that the schools that usually
make the most progress are schools that focus on the objective
performance of students on our annual tests, and soon they will
be more frequent. But it is the schools where the leadership of
the school--the principal, the assistant principal--are able to
convince their faculties to drill down on the information, the
performance information, and to act on that performance
information.
It comes from the top. You are right about that. It comes
from the top. And when you get the faculty members, the
teachers, to sort of take ownership of that and believe in
that, just amazing things happen in terms of student
performance.
Believe it or not--here in Congress--one of the things I
love to do is every 2 years, right after the election, we have
orientation for new Senators. It was an idea that Senators
Voinovich, Alexander, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas came up with
about 4 or 5 years ago. And we always had for years orientation
for new Senators and spouses. We call it orientation for new
governors and spouses that the National Governors Association
holds. We never had that kind of thing for Senators, at least
not that I knew of. So we took the National Governors
Association idea, brought it to the U.S. Senate, starting in
2004. One of our first students was Barack Obama. He has done
quite well. [Laughter.]
But one of the things at the orientation for new Senators,
we started to teach the new Senators all the things we had done
wrong so they will not make the same mistakes that we made as
new people or as older people in our jobs.
One of the things I shared with them is how we measure
performance in my office--not in every way, but in a couple of
ways. A lot of people focus on a Senator's job and they think
it is what they do in Washington. It is the amendments that we
introduce, the bills we vote on and so forth, the legislation
we write. That is all important. But a big part of what we do
at home is help people. We literally help people. I hosted a
family for lunch yesterday. They had won an auction to have
lunch with their Senator and help the YMCA back home for a
donation. And the kid said--these are kids like 6, 8, and 10.
He said, ``What do you do, anyway?'' And I told him my job is
to help make the rules for our country, and we call them laws,
and like they have rules at school, rules at home. I said, ``We
have rules for our country, call them laws, I get to help make
those with Barack Obama and Joe Biden and other people.'' They
were pretty impressed. They wanted my autograph. And they said,
``Barack Obama, do you know him?'' I said, ``I have met him.''
But a big part of what we do at home is we literally help--
dozens of people call us every day with all kinds of problems--
relatives in Iraq, relatives in Afghanistan, folks who are
being pinged by the IRS for no good reason, Social Security
problems, Medicare problems, veterans issues, all kinds of
stuff. And we actually have helped thousands, probably 16,000
people in the last 8 years.
Anyway, at the beginning of every month, we send out a
customer satisfaction survey to the people, a representative
sample of folks we served the previous month. And we asked them
to evaluate our service--excellent, good, fair, or poor. And if
they come back anything less than excellent or good, we call
them on the phone and say, ``Why were we fair?'' Or ``Why were
we poor? What could we have done differently?'' I think over
the last several years we were, I think, about 98 percent
excellent or good, so we are very proud of that. And it is
great feedback for the folks who work on my staff in--we call
it ``constituent service.''
The other thing we do is we measure mail. We used to get a
lot of mail here. Now we get a lot of e-mails. We get faxes, we
get phone calls. But with health care and some other issues,
climate change legislation, we get thousands of e-mails,
letters, and calls a week. And for a little State like
Delaware, that is a lot.
But we track the mail, who is writing what issues, and we
track timeliness of responses, turn-around times and how long
it has been for a response. We are not perfect, but we are very
proud of the way we do that. But we actually measure that
performance. I get a report every other week, and I review that
with my staff and meet every week with my legislative
correspondents by phone so they know this is important stuff.
The idea is it starts from the top, and we emphasize how
important it is, and it seems to work.
Let me ask you to share with us that nursing home example
of how managers used performance information well, if you just
could start off with that.
Ms. Steinhardt. Well, first, I would really like to comment
on your stories because I think they are outstanding examples
of how that visible concern, that visible commitment to
performance, really makes a huge difference. And I think the
fact that you made appearances at the schools--it was not only
what the principals did, but that you showed up, and as
governor you showed that you cared, I am sure that made a
difference in how everyone at the schools felt about it. So,
yes, leadership really does matter.
In the case of CMS, I think the example that you referred
to is one that we talk about in our report, and it is one that
we found very compelling. CMS is an agency that is responsible
for overseeing the quality of nursing home care, but it does it
indirectly. It is obviously at the nursing home level where
patient care is really affected.
CMS, in one particular region, started collecting
information about dimensions of quality of care, including the
incidence of pressure ulcers or bedsores. And they started
sharing that information with nursing home operators, with the
State survey teams, and others who did have the ability to
affect the outcomes. And just the availability of the
performance information, the regular attention and monitoring
of that information eventually led to a decline in the
incidence of bedsores within the region by a considerable
amount. Over 2,000 to about 2,400 fewer patients experienced
pressure ulcers as a result of the attention that they were
paying.
Senator Carper. That is a good story. Thank you.
Ms. Steinhardt. Yes, and it is real. It is personal.
Senator Carper. Mr. Zients, given your background in this
issue, could you just share with us some insights as to why the
overall use of performance information among Federal managers
has not significantly increased, I think, over the last 15 or
so years? And what strategies do you think are necessary to
support our governmentwide transformation to a more results-
oriented and collaborative culture?
Mr. Zients. Well, first of all, I think that, like you, it
is in my DNA. So as I come in from the private sector, I come
with that same mind-set that you have, that you are operating
with each day. I have been surprised by the lack of attention
to performance, prioritization, and focus starting at the top
historically. And I do think it starts at the top. It has to
cascade through the organization, but if the senior-most folks
are focused on the right performance goals and metrics and are
relentlessly tracking them the way you do weekly, then that
cascades through the organization. And, unfortunately, if they
are not, then it does not happen.
I think we are off to a good start on this front. I chair a
group called the President's Management Council, which is
comprised of deputy secretaries across all major agencies. And
when you think about how busy secretaries are with their
external-facing responsibilities, the deputies tend to be the
point people for performance. And I am very impressed by the
talent around the table and the commitment at that table to
focus on a handful of performance goals.
We asked, as in our spring guidance as part of the fiscal
year 2011 budget, for each agency to identify a handful of
high-priority goals, and I think overall with some variability,
the agencies, deputy secretaries, and secretaries did a very
good job.
Now, as those goals get finalized and incorporated
appropriately into the budget process, we need to make sure
that we set up the systems to review progress against those
goals, spot problems early, and also reward successes, like
your nursing home story, and your improper payment work, as
they emerge.
I think we are off to a good start. It has to be done at a
senior level. It has to be focused. There cannot be too many
goals. As we move from goals to tracking and metrics, we need
to make sure that those metrics are outcomes based. As stated
earlier, we need to make sure we have the capabilities to go
across program and even across agency in that a lot of our
issues or problems or opportunities are not siloed or they do
not reside just within a silo or an agency, or a program for
that matter.
As we begin to look at what has happened historically, we
need to be careful not to throw it all out the window, because
there is a lot of good stuff. And we need to at the same time
make it more usable, and I think the way we do that is to
leverage information technology and bring together the GPRA
reporting with the pieces of PART that we want to keep and
integrate that with the high-priority performance goal, and as
we cascade down the organization, make sure that we have
information that is outcomes based, that is usable, and that we
track.
I am optimistic. There is a lot of good stuff in place. The
foundation has been laid. Now we have the challenge of raising
the importance of it, which I think the President has done by
making it a high priority. As the first Chief Performance
Officer, it is a high priority for me. And as I see the
deputies dig into their new jobs, it is clearly front and
center for them. So I am optimistic that those statistics will
continue to improve across time and, most importantly, we will
have better outcomes for the American people.
Senator Carper. You mentioned the President. In a State,
the chief executive, of course, is the governor, and in our
State housing had not gotten a lot of attention. And we decided
that we were going to provide more attention, not just talk
about it but to make the director of the State Housing
Authority a member of my Cabinet and to provide Cabinet status
to say this is important. And it is amazing what we did in
terms of improving quality of homes, homeownership, and just
ensuring that people had a decent place to live, and also
helped move people from dependency, living in subsidized
housing, to becoming homeowners and moving out on their own.
But it starts with a lot of things. It starts at the top. The
designation in a senior position in this Administration for a
Chief Performance Officer is, I think, a very good signal.
Ms. Steinhardt, if I could go back to you, GAO has been
monitoring agencies' use of performance information, I think,
for maybe more than a decade. Let me just ask, should OMB be
doing this type of monitoring? And if so, how do you think they
might go about it?
Ms. Steinhardt. I think OMB should be doing this kind of
monitoring as a matter of fact. I think it is appropriate to
the extent that they want to keep track of how agency managers
are using information, it would be worthwhile for them to have
the information.
We now share it. We have been doing this survey every 4
years for the last decade or so, but I think as a regular part
of OMB's responsibilities, it would make sense for them to
assume that kind of oversight function.
Senator Carper. From the work that you have done at GAO,
could you provide us maybe with an example or two of how an
agency was able to bring about better outcomes through the use
of performance information? You gave us one great example, the
nursing home. Anything else that comes to mind?
Ms. Steinhardt. I wish that there were a huge long list of
these examples, but I will just mention another one that we
have observed in our experience. The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, a very interesting agency, collects
information on trends in safety across the country, and they
have been looking at data, monitoring data on highway
fatalities. And through this regular monitoring and through
evaluations, they realized that seat belt usage was a major
factor in reducing the incidence of highway fatalities.
Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA), does not run anything. They provide grants to States.
It obviously states that control--that set traffic laws and
regulations. But in their grants to States, they share this
information with States. They initiated this click-it or ticket
program to encourage States to enforce seat belt usage. And
with that, the incidence of fatalities, highway traffic
fatalities and injuries fell quite a lot.
So I think just having information, sharing the
information, staying on top of it, we have seen some really
clear and very credible kinds of results.
Senator Carper. I will not get into it, but that is an
example that for me comes very close to home. Thank you.
Mr. Zients, if I could, another question for you. OMB has
signaled that it intends to replace PART with a new performance
information and analysis framework. What do you think that new
framework will look like? How might it promote the use of
performance information by managers? And, third, how will the
new framework incorporate the perspectives of the Congress and
other stakeholders on what areas of performance need to be
reviewed?
Just take those one at a time, if you want. What will the
new framework look like?
Mr. Zients. Let me start with the role of OMB and, I think,
agreeing with what you said. At the same time, I think that
historically--certainly the last 8 years or so--OMB has played
the role of a compliance officer rather than a teacher or a
facilitator or a hub of best practice sharing. And I think
given how big this government is and how talented our Federal
workforce is and our manager ranks are, I think we need to move
from compliance to teaching and sharing to really achieve what
I think all of us agree.
So I think there is a transition for OMB. Not to say that
there is not some role for reviewing and prodding, if you will,
but I think that in order to create usefulness, we need to make
that transition.
Part of that is the Performance Improvement Council (PIC),
and it is a group that is made up of senior folks from agencies
who are the accountable executives, on performance. That body
came together, I believe, a couple of years ago and is getting
real traction, and we have asked that group to work on exactly
the question that you ask, which is: What do we do with PART?
What do we do with GPRA? How do we integrate? How do we make
this more usable? And I think that means we need to be more
focused than we have been. There are too many metrics out
there. So we have to figure out which metrics matter.
We need to make sure that those metrics are actually
outcomes-based metrics and not just process or input metrics.
We need to make sure that there are good tracking systems for
those and review systems for those and good education systems
because this is new. And we need to make sure that we are
training and educating through the PIC and other bodies.
So I think it needs to be a collaborative effort, and
certainly we want to involve you and your staff in helping us
think through how is it most useful to you, and ultimately this
needs to come together and matter to Congress and to the
American people and be transparent and available for all, and I
think also be tied to the budget process to show that
performance matters and that we are going to fund programs that
work and we are either going to fix or not fund programs that
do not.
Senator Carper. Thank you. A couple more questions for Ms.
Steinhardt, if I could.
We were just talking about how the Obama Administration has
indicated that it intends to replace PART with a new
performance improvement and analysis framework. What do you
think OMB can do to make the successor to PART more relevant
and useful to Congress and to agency managers? We have heard
from Mr. Zients on what the plans are, but if you could just
let us know, what do you think OMB can do to make the successor
to PART more relevant, maybe more useful, and not just to
Congress but also to agency managers?
Ms. Steinhardt. Well, first, I think one of the lessons we
learned from our assessments at GAO of the PART process was
that it was too broad, and it really would have benefited from
a greater focus on priority areas. And I think that is what Mr.
Zients has outlined here as the direction that OMB is taking. I
think that is a constructive and hopefully effective approach.
Rather than trying to look at everything, I think PART assessed
a thousand programs. Focusing on priority areas should be very
helpful.
I think certainly consulting with Congress in that process
would be very important and valuable. It was something that did
not work very well during the PART process, and we have an
opportunity now to do better.
I think in terms of making information more useful or
helping to support agency managers, I think what Mr. Zients has
outlined as a kind of coaching, supportive approach to sharing
information and good practices is also very important. We found
in our past work that training in using performance information
has actually been the factor that is singly most important in
effecting use of performance information. So whatever OMB can
do there to help promote good practices, to help support those
agencies where it seems to be missing, and also to share what
they learn from agencies where it is working well, those could
be very valuable, I think, for going forward.
Senator Carper. Before I ask one more question of you, Mr.
Zients, do you want to respond at all to anything that Ms.
Steinhardt has said?
Mr. Zients. No. I read the report, there was not a single
place where I paused and said, ``Hmm.'' It all felt exactly on
point, and I do not think there is any disagreement around what
needs to be done here. It is about us putting our heads down
and getting it done.
I do think the training component is important. I was
reminded of it last night. My oldest of four is 14, and to
date, I have been OK at helping her with her math homework. She
needs to go to her Mom for other stuff. But now she is into
geometry, and I think she was not only disappointed but did not
quite believe me that I could not do it. And then, if you go
back and actually read it, geometry comes back to you, but,
other math sort of sticks with you because you use it every
day.
There is a component here in that all of this stuff, when
you see the right metrics, you say, yes, that is pretty
obvious. But it is not a natural exercise, and we do need to
sort of remind people of their geometry or teach their
geometry. And once we do that and we have lots of folks who are
capable of teasing out these right metrics and coming up with
the right systems to do that relentless pursuit and review that
you described, I think it will catch. We will hit a tipping
point. But we need to do some training and education to ensure
that happens.
Senator Carper. I was watching, and when you talked about
your 14-year-old and hitting the point where homework, the math
homework and geometry or advanced algebra or whatever, I saw
some nodding heads. [Laughter.]
Mr. Zients. It is the least of my issues with my 14-year-
old, but a lot of this I will not be able to relearn.
Senator Carper. Thanks for sharing that one with us.
GAO has previously recommended that OMB should work with
agencies to ensure they are making adequate investments in
training on performance planning and measurements, with a
particular emphasis on how to use performance information to
improve program performance.
But, again, you have covered this a little bit already, at
least indirectly, but just talk with us again about what steps
OMB has taken or what steps will you take to address this
recommendation from GAO.
GAO has previously recommended that OMB should work with
agencies to ensure they are making adequate investments in
training on performance planning and measurement, with a
particular emphasis on how to use performance information to
improve program performance. Would you respond to that in part?
Mr. Zients. I will cover some ground that we have already
talked about. One is making sure that the deputies understand
the importance of this, and so that when they are going through
their budget allocation exercise, they are doing that
consistent with their high-priority performance goals, but also
preserving money for training and education across the board
and on this specific topic.
I think the Performance Improvement Council is a great
vehicle here. It is meeting monthly. I am the chair of that
council, and Ms. Metzenbaum will be dedicating a lot of time
and energy to the meetings and to working sessions in between.
So I think that it is the focus at the senior levels. It is the
commitment to training. I think OMB can play a part here by
putting our energy toward training and education and sharing
best practices, and I think recognition here is very important,
too, in that we need to make sure that we are celebrating the
successes. There are a lot of successes, and we need to make
sure that we spend appropriate time celebrating those.
Senator Carper. Good. And one last question, if I could,
Ms. Steinhardt, for you. You were good enough to give us an
example or two from agencies in terms of performance. Do you
have any examples in which Congress has articulated performance
expectations in its oversight capacity and followed up with
agencies to assess their progress toward meeting those
expectations?
Ms. Steinhardt. Actually, there are probably many more
examples than come to mind. But Congress has been very
influential in affecting performance. Improper payments, the
example you gave earlier, I think is one very vivid example of
where setting a target or directing agencies to first
understand where they are and then set targets for reducing it
has made a very important difference.
Another example that comes to mind has to do with the IRS.
In the IRS Restructuring Act in 1998, among other things,
Congress directed that IRS increase electronic filing. And it
set a target in the legislation that by the year 2007 some 80
percent of tax returns would be filed electronically. And that
has enormous implications for service to the taxpayer. For one
thing, electronic filing could get taxpayers their refunds much
more quickly. And it would reduce costs of processing
enormously.
And through setting the target and then overseeing IRS'
efforts along the way, that target has not been completely met,
but I think now it is around 72 percent of tax returns are
filed electronically. So we have made enormous progress through
that direction that Congress set in statute.
Senator Carper. Mr. Zients.
Mr. Zients. I just thought I would add one, because I think
there are many, and that is security clearance reform. Senator
Akaka and Senator Voinovich held a hearing a couple weeks ago,
and I am chair of the task force, and it is an honor to be part
of such an important problem, but it is also nice to enter at a
point where so much progress has been made. A stake was put in
the ground as to progress across a period of time, and that
group is on track. So, again, I think it is the power of
setting a goal and the relentless pursuit of that goal.
Senator Carper. Well, good. With that, let me just close by
saying I know you all have a lot on your plates. We very much
appreciate the preparation that you put into coming here today
and your commitment to making sure that at a time when we are
facing enormous challenges, and a lot of them budgetary and
fiscal in nature, that there is a real focus that comes in from
the top, and we have GAO to make sure that we get some help and
good advice and counsel in addressing these matters.
I am told by my staff that we have some legislative ideas
on a lot of what we have discussed here today, and let me just
say we look forward to working both with GAO and with OMB on
those in the weeks to come.
Thank you very much. Keep up the good work. Everything I do
I know I can do better. And, frankly, the same is true with
almost everything we do in government and outside of
government. And our job and our challenge is to make sure we do
it better.
Thank you.
Ms. Steinhardt. Thank you.
Mr. Zients. Thank you.
Senator Carper. And with that I am going to ask our second
panel to come forward and join us at the witness table, please.
Good morning, everyone. It is great to see you. Thanks so
much for joining us. I see Mr. Fugate, our FEMA Administrator,
often. He has only been in the job a short while, but I see him
a lot. But I do not get to see the rest of you quite that
often, so we are delighted that you are here.
I am going to provide a short introduction on each of you,
but before I introduce our witnesses, I want to take a moment
to thank you for appearing, but I think it is also impressive
that you have not only been invited but you have shown up, and
that the commitment of agency heads and senior leaders to
results-oriented management is critical, which we heard from
our first panel, critical to increased use of performance
information for policy and program decisions. If it is not a
priority at the top, it will not be a priority down the line.
And that you are here is, I think, a testimony to your
commitment, and for that we are grateful.
I am going to start from my left, in introducing Craig
Fugate. Mr. Fugate began serving in the position of
Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in May
2009. It has only been about 4 or 5 months. It probably seems
like 4 or 5 years. But you are holding up well. We are glad
that you have joined us today.
Prior to coming to FEMA, Mr. Fugate served as Director of
the Florida Division of Emergency Management. If there is any
way to learn about emergency management, that is a good State
in which to get your training. In that role, I think since
2001, he managed 138 full-time staff and a budget of $745
million. His agency coordinated disaster response, recovery,
preparedness, and mitigation efforts with each of the State's
67 counties and local governments. I come from a State with
three counties, and some of my colleagues say that during the
course of a year they will visit or every 2 years they try to
visit all their counties.
But in 2004, Mr. Fugate successfully managed the largest
Federal disaster response in Florida history as four major
hurricanes impacted his State in quick succession. Homeland
Security Secretary Napolitano has called Mr. Fugate one of the
most experienced emergency managers in the country, and he is.
We are lucky to have him in this post.
Rhea Suh, thank you so much for joining us. I understand
you were sworn into office as the Assistant Secretary for
Policy, Management, and Budget at the Department of the
Interior in May, working with one of my old compadres from the
Senate, Ken Salazar. I mentioned that Senator-elect Obama and
his wife, Michelle, were in our very first orientation class
for new Senators and spouses, and the only other Democrat in
that class was Ken Salazar. So we have two who graduated, and
one has gone on to be President and the other, Secretary of the
Interior, where he works with you.
But in your role at the Interior, you oversee, I am told
the financial, administrative, and programmatic policy for the
Department, including budget formulation, implementation, and
accountability. Prior to this, I believe you served as a
program officer at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation--
that is a big foundation; that is a big job--where you managed
a $200 million, 6-year initiative designed to build ecological
integrity and resilience in key land and watersheds in western
North America. Our thanks to you and the foundation for that
work.
From 1998 to 2007, Ms. Suh was a program officer at the
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she managed the
foundation's portfolio of grants designed to protect the
ecosystems of the western part of North America.
And during the Clinton Administration, I believe you served
as a senior legislative assistant on the staff of Senator Ben
Nighthorse Campbell, a Native American, a former Olympian, I
think, as I recall, and one of my colleagues. He and I used to
work out together in the House gym, and he is an old compadre.
It is nice to know you have worked with Senator Nighthorse
Campbell.
Michelle Snyder, Acting Deputy Administrator and the Deputy
Chief Operating Officer for the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS). With the Acting Administrator, she
oversees daily operations and a staff of over 4,000 people. A
big operation. Formerly, I believe you were CMS's Director of
the Office of Financial Management and the agency's first Chief
Financial Officer. Is that right?
Ms. Snyder. That is right.
Senator Carper. Under your leadership, CMS achieved its
first clean audit opinion and developed its first comprehensive
strategic plan on program integrity. During that time, she also
oversaw one of CMS's most significant efforts involving the
integration of its financial and accounting systems to better
manage Medicare trust fund. Thank you for joining us. Thanks
for your work.
Dr. Paul Posner is Director of the Public Administration
Graduate School at George Mason University. Prior to his
current position, I understand that he directed the Federal
budget work of the General Accounting Office for 14 years. Did
you know anybody on our first panel?
Mr. Posner. A few of them, yes.
Senator Carper. I understand you are also the President of
the American Society for Public Administration and a fellow of
the National Academy of Public Administration. Dr. Posner, I
understand you cut short an important California trip in order
to be with us today, and we greatly appreciate that. We look
forward to your testimony.
With those introductions under our belts, Administrator
Fugate, would you please proceed? Again, I would ask that you
try to keep your comments to 5 minutes.
Mr. Fugate, thanks again for your testimony. Let me again
mention your entire testimonies will be made part of the
record, so feel free to summarize as you see fit. Thank you.
Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF W. CRAIG FUGATE,\1\ ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Mr. Fugate. Well, good morning, and thank you, Chairman
Carper.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Fugate appears in the Appendix on
page 63.
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When we talk about management performance, FEMA usually
does not come to mind as one of the leading examples on how to
do it right.
Senator Carper. You are probably right. That is a
understatement.
Mr. Fugate. But I also think there is a double edge to
this. There is also the tendency--when we are asked to measure
things, the natural tendency is to measure things that are easy
to measure. That does not actually mean they change an outcome.
I think that part of our challenge is defining what
outcomes we are trying to achieve and then identifying the
processes that will get us to that outcome. Just because it may
be easy to measure does not necessarily lead to a successful
outcome.
It is our challenge at FEMA, as we look at how do we define
what an outcome is and then make sure that we have the
processes and procedures to support that outcome, to achieve
what we are trying to achieve on behalf of the governors that
we support in a disaster. What is it and how are we going to
measure it? And, more importantly, how do we hold managers
accountable to that performance?
As we were discussing earlier, you cannot fix what you do
not measure. You do not know where you are going if you don't
have a destination. And without some way to tell how fast the
speedometer is going, you do not know when you are going to get
there.
So part of this comes back to, as we look at what we are
doing at FEMA, is to make sure that we understand from the top
down we have to be accountable as to the leadership for those
outcomes. We have to be accountable that if we accept and state
that these are going to be our performance measures, that we
actually pay attention to it, and we look at what our
performance is, we look at what the root issues are if we are
not achieving that performance, and we take action. We do not
wait for other folks to come in and tell us we need to improve.
We self-improve ourselves, and we have to build the tools to do
that.
Secretary Napolitano and I are committed to defining these
outcomes, providing these measures, and holding ourselves and
our team accountable to achieving that improvement process. Mr.
Chairman, to give you an example--I have several, but one which
you are very familiar with. In the Post-Katrina Emergency
Management Reform Act, we were defining a national housing
strategy. Well, if you read the national housing strategy, it
talks about process.
I came back and asked the team, I said, ``Well, I want to
give you a number. Can you provide, and how would you provide,
housing in a disaster for half a million families within 60
days of an event occurring?''
That challenged that strategy because it was not based upon
an outcome; it was based upon describing process.
How can we know we are getting close to or have built the
tools to get us where we needed to be based upon the disasters
we face if all we are doing is talking about a process and a
strategy?
And so these are the steps we are taking, and sometimes, as
you say, and has been presented, sometimes the things we try to
measure may not necessarily be what the outcome is, and that is
where we are trying to go.
The other part of this is to provide tools so that we have
that dashboard approach, so we can look at things and see where
we are and are we getting performance measures.
I want to talk about something else that I think is very
dear to you, Mr. Chairman. Coming up in October, we will be
remembering the losses in this country, the line-of-duty deaths
of firefighters and emergency medical personnel. You know what
one of the leading causes of deaths in this country for these
folks, line-of-duty deaths is? Going to and coming back from
the emergency itself.
I sat down with Chief Cochran. I said that we are
collecting this data, but where is our emphasis on changing
this? We have programs in place. We are putting emphasis on
this. But we need to do more than just talk about dying and
getting severely injured going to and coming from an emergency
being unacceptable to how do we put some measures on that. Are
our programs effective? So rather than just reporting out how
many line-of-duty deaths are traffic crashes and how many
injuries are traffic crashes, we want to look at what our data
has been for the last couple years and say let us cut it in
half. Now let us start driving our programs so we get an
outcome that saves lives.
You should not have deaths responding to and coming back
from emergencies. Everybody should go home after the emergency.
But if we just talk about how we measure the numbers but we do
not say we need to reduce the numbers and now drive our
programs to achieve that, we will continue to report line-of-
duty deaths without a change in outcome.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you very much. Just coming out of our
markup over in the Finance Committee on health care reform,
there was a lot of discussion about defensive medicine and what
we might want to do to reduce the incidence of defense medicine
and improve the quality of health care outcomes and maybe
reduce the frequency of litigation and medical malpractice. And
what I think we are going to probably end up doing is really
directing a series of robust demonstration projects in States
using different approaches--health courts, safe harbors--a
certification process. Let us say Dr. Posner is an actual
medical doctor, he is my doctor, and he takes off the wrong leg
in a procedure, and I want to sue him. In my State now, before
I can do that, I have to go before a panel of people who are
trained experts and say, ``This is my case. What do you
think?'' And if they do not think I have a case, I do not make
the case in court. So that would be an approach where--some
States have caps on medical malpractice, non-economic damages,
and so we will test a couple of those as well.
The idea is to see what is working in different States to
robustly test them, analyze the results, and then hopefully
encourage States to do more of what works and less of what does
not.
Ms. Suh, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF RHEA S. SUH,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY,
MANAGEMENT, AND BUDGET, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Suh. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I sincerely appreciate
the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about the
management issues at the Department of the Interior. As we said
earlier, in the interest of time, I will be submitting my full
testimony for the record, and I will summarize my remarks
briefly.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Suh appears in the Appendix on
page 71.
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One of my highest priorities as Assistant Secretary for
Policy, Management, and Budget at the Department of the
Interior is a rigorous and renewed focus on management.
Effective management begins with a clear articulation of a
success for the organization. If you do not know where you are
going, any road is going to take you there.
Senator Carper. Did you guys collaborate on the testimony?
[Laughter.]
That was pretty good.
Ms. Suh. So we are communicating very clearly with
employees about the direction that the Department is taking,
and we are building in performance information that holds them
accountable for the achievement of these goals. But doing that
well is not easy. Let me give you a few examples of the
challenges and tell you how we are beginning to address these
challenges. For these purposes, let us consider our national
parks and the issue of restoration.
First, performance information has to be specific enough
for implementation, so for restoration purposes, we need
information about restoration for every national park. Each
national park is unique. We have 391 units of them. So
collecting individual park information is critical. It is
relevant to managers, and it allows us to hold them accountable
and to set goals for what we can achieve. And yet performance
information must also aggregate so that we can make agency-
level decisions.
Because there are 391 national park units, we must be able
to pull the information up about restoration across these parks
so that we know what is going on with the entire system. We are
doing that by creating common measures that can be aggregated.
But we must also be able to communicate about and assess what
we are doing beyond just the national parks. We are, after all,
a large and fairly complex agency of 70,000 people organized
within nine different bureaus. We want all of our employees to
know that what they do fits into a larger priority set within
the Department.
National Parks Service employees who work on restoration
need to know why their work makes sense in the larger ambitions
and mission of the agency. We are thus developing a framework
that pulls together the vision for the entire Department.
All of these challenges are really why we are revising the
current existing strategic plan to reflect Secretary Salazar's
new vision and to provide a streamlined framework that embodies
our existing functions. This framework will enable us to create
a feedback loop that links policy, human resources, and
financial information at the resource level up to the
Department level and back down.
Specifically, we will refine and refocus our existing
performance benchmarks to ensure that we are not only measuring
the things that are meaningful, but that the emphasis is less
on compliance and more on performance. We will use these
measures both as a mechanism to prioritize resources, expanding
the link between performance and resource allocations as well
as the tool to establish individual responsibility and
accountability associated with these goals.
We deeply appreciate your interest in performance
management and very much support the need to expand the
effective use of performance management data. The GAO report
was very helpful to us, and as I have described, we are
implementing many of its recommendations.
Secretary Salazar, has established a new and very high bar
of accountability for the Department. We take this quite
seriously, and our renewed effort in expanding the meaningful
use of performance measures is one of the most important tools,
I believe, in meeting these high standards and in successfully
accomplishing our critical resource protection and management
goals.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. Obviously, I
would be pleased to answer any questions that you have.
Senator Carper. I will just ask one quick one before I turn
to Ms. Snyder. There are 391 national parks or units of
national parks in all across the country. Are there any States
that do not have a national park?
Ms. Suh. There are no States that do not have a national
park unit.
Senator Carper. The answer is there is one. The first State
to ratify the Constitution, the First State has no national
park, and Ken Salazar was in our State earlier this year to
announce that probably next year--you know the saying in the
Bible, the first shall be last, the last shall be first. Well,
the First State will become next year the last State to host a
national park.
Ken Burns, the documentary film maker of great renown, has
completed a new film series. It is going to debut very soon, if
it has not already, on national public TV, and it is called
``America's Best Idea: The National Park.'' He grew up in
Delaware. And maybe we will have a sequel to that.
Ms. Suh. I stand corrected. Thank you, sir.
Senator Carper. You bet. Ms. Snyder, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF MICHELLE SNYDER,\1\ ACTING DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR
AND DEPUTY CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND
MEDICAID SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Ms. Snyder. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor and
a pleasure to be here today to discuss with you CMS's efforts
to increase the use of performance information within the
agency.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Snyder appears in the Appendix on
page 74.
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In total, as CMS outlays about $700 billion a year on
health care expenditures, which is one of the largest
categories of Federal Government spending. The Administration,
the Congress, beneficiaries, and taxpayers clearly expect CMS
to be accountable for the efficient and effective
administration of the oversight of the Medicare, Medicaid, and
Children's Health Insurance programs. We take this role very
seriously because we know that this oversight impacts over 98
million lives in this country. And our experience shows just
how important it has been, and continues to be, to use
performance information in the evaluation and running of those
programs.
When I talk about performance information, I really mean
the data that is used by CMS to measure our progress towards
the Department and agency goals that lead to the improvement of
programmatic oversight, better quality of care for our
beneficiaries, and more effective management of staff and
resources.
As you heard previously from GAO, CMS has made great
strides in the use of data to assist in making key agency
decisions. However, we also hear your charge that no matter how
well we have been doing, we can always do better.
One area that we focused on is appropriate oversight of our
programs. An example is the CFO audit that CMS undergoes
annually. In early audits, we were unable to provide sufficient
documentation to support the amounts reported in our financial
statements.
We worked hard to fix that by putting plans in place to
improve the collection of financial data, and we tracked our
progress in strengthening our internal financial controls and
addressing material weaknesses. Today a detailed corrective
action plan is developed, monitored, and implemented for each
finding in the CFO audit. This tracking has led to clean
opinion audit ratings for each of the last 10 fiscal years, and
a reduction in the number of material weaknesses that have,
therefore, strengthened our financial oversight of the Medicare
program.
Performance information is also integral to achieving our
vision of a transformed and modernized health care system and
instrumental in improving the quality of health care for those
98 million Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP beneficiaries that I
mentioned. For instance, two CMS quality initiatives that rely
on performance information include the Nursing Home Compare
website that enables consumers, providers, States, and
researchers to compare information on nursing homes in
particular geographic areas.
Many nursing homes have also made significant improvements
in the care provided to residents, recording a decrease in the
use of restraints and number of beneficiaries suffering
pressure ulcers in nursing homes.
And one other website I would like to mention is----
Senator Carper. This sounds familiar.
Ms. Snyder. It sounds familiar. And the Hospital Compare
website, which also includes public reporting and comparisons
of hospital performance information. We have seen improvement
in the results of the hospitals, including a decrease in the
percentage of surgical patients receiving incorrect surgical
care and antibiotics, which in turn reduces mortality,
morbidity, and rehospitalization rates.
We continue to plan to build on these quality initiatives.
Performance measurement is essential for health care providers
to learn where they stand, and public reporting can be a
powerful catalyst for improvement.
Finally, I would just like to say that CMS has developed a
series of strategies to utilize performance information to
improve the efficiency and management of our staff. A key
strategy is implementing performance plan evaluations for all
CMS employees. These plans are developed with clear measurable
and observable standards. Initially, and intentionally, the
performance measures selected fit under and link with HHS and
CMS goals. This cascading of goals, as we call it, allows CMS
to align each employee's work with our overall objectives.
Through better use of performance information, we also plan to
provide even more data tools to employees in their
decisionmaking.
This early work that we put in place is bearing fruit. We
have been recognized for our improvements, but we do want to
continue to evaluate and monitor our progress and improve on
what we are doing.
One example where we are also using the performance
measures, which I think is something that is very important to
folks in this room, is implementation of the Recovery Act at
CMS. We are building on what we have learned in other parts of
the agency in terms of project and performance management
experience. We have designed a project management officer to
manage and monitor implementation and ensure that the
Department has information timely to work with us in
implementing this key legislation.
In addition, we are employing a tool which we call the
Priority Project Tracker (PPT), that is giving us enhanced
capability to look at dependencies across our projects and
components and ensure timely information is made available to
senior leadership in the agency.
We look forward to working with you to make sure that
performance information is available to ensure operational
risks are immediately identified, employees are held
accountable for meeting the agency's goal, and our overall
performance is easily measured.
Thank you for allowing me to share how CMS uses performance
information, and I look forward to answering any questions you
may have.
Senator Carper. Thank you so much.
When we go into the questions--I will just give you a heads
up. You mentioned the stimulus package. One of the issues of
great interest to us, particularly as we approach health care
reform legislation, is the money that is in the package, $20
billion for health IT, the implementation of health IT. I might
be asking you just to share some thoughts with us as to how we
are doing in terms of getting that money out there and putting
it to work.
Dr. Posner, again, thanks so much. We are delighted. Again,
we appreciate your being willing to change your own schedule to
be here, and we are deeply grateful. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL L. POSNER,\1\ DIRECTOR, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, GEORGE
MASON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Posner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding
this hearing, and I want to tell you my personal metric for
gauging the maturation of performance in government, 10 years
ago, when I used to do these hearings, there were about five
people in the audience, and now you have filled the room. So I
think that is a good sign that there is greater interest here.
And it is important----
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Posner appears in the Appendix on
page 89.
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Senator Carper. When you are running a budget deficit, in
the last 8 years we ran up as much new debt as we did in the
first 208 years of our Nation's history, this year on track to
our biggest budget deficit ever, and if we look forward to the
next 10 years and $9 trillion of additional debt, we need to
focus on improper payments, we need to focus on performance.
And I think it is kind of like you guys and gals are going to
be the stars and help point us in the right direction, and we
need to be right there leading the way. Thank you.
Mr. Posner. Absolutely, you stated the importance much
better than I could have.
I think when we think about where we are, it is a good time
to take stock. We have made surprising progress. Those who were
there when the GPRA was passed in the middle of the night
thought this would go in the dust bin of history along with PPB
and ZBB and the rest, but it has not. It has stayed around for
a long time. I think we have developed a supply side very well.
Agencies have developed data and information thanks to PART and
to, obviously GPRA.
We still have concerns about the demand for this
information. Managers are using this more, I think, for their
own needs, which is very important. What we need to think about
is how can we incent decisionmakers and the Congress and the
Executive to use it for budget issues and the like.
When we think about how to use this information in
budgeting, by the way, one important thing to recognize is to
set our expectations right. This is not going to eliminate
politics from budgeting. It is not going to say if the
performance goes up, we are going to increase money; if
performance goes down, we are going to decrease money. We would
not want to say if drug abuse goes up, we are going to cut
money for drug programs. What it does, it provides questions
for people to think about, not answers, which are properly
political and priorities, among other things.
So, with that in mind, how can we think about keeping the
ball rolling and generating more use of this information. I
have an agenda that I have laid out in the testimony.
First of all, continuity is very important. I am pleased to
see this Administration is continuing the effort of the
previous two Administrations to put high-level emphasis on this
from OMB down, and I think that trickles to the agencies and
incents even Congress to take notice of this.
Second, I think it is important to think about this as
multifaceted. We have agencies, OMB and the Congress, all who
have to have a line of sight between performance and their own
interests. And so this is going to look, I think, different for
different kinds of actors in our system.
First of all, I think it is important to keep the
foundations going. This is a long-term enterprise getting
performance right, if you will, particularly in the Federal
level, much more difficult than at the local level. I started
my career in the New York City budget office. Performance was
pretty easy. People in Queens knew when the garbage would be
picked up. We measured it, and we were able to improve things.
Now, as Ms. Steinhardt said in her testimony, we are
dealing with complex things where the Federal Government really
writes the checks and issues the rules and leaves it to other
people--State and local governments and nonprofits--to really
do the work. How do you instill performance motivations and
incentives in people who do not work for you, who have
different values and interests? That is a really difficult
challenge for Federal officials, so we need to think about how
we get our grants and contracts aligned with performance as
well as direct Federal employees.
Then think about how we get our budget structures aligned.
The appropriations and budget structures are oriented in many
different ways. Some are focused on inputs. Some are focused on
organizations. Some are focused on performance goals. It is not
consistent. Other nations and States have kind of reformed
their budget structures to focus decisionmakers on performance-
related units of analysis. We have a long way to go there.
Obviously, Congress has to be front and center.
We need to think about imparting a more strategic focus to
this. Yes, agencies are important, but many things that we care
about as a Nation, like food safety, are scattered around 14
agencies. Job training, we have 60 programs. Student aid and
higher education assistance, we have a welter of tax credits,
loans, guarantees, and grants, all of which sing off of
different pages and send different incentives.
How can we figure out a way to be more strategic about what
we are trying to achieve in these broad mission areas? I think
it is one of the next stages of performance as we move forward.
We need to keep the best of PART, which was a dedication to
reexamine programs periodically, but we need to do it, as has
been said here, in a more selective, targeted way, and a way
that engages the interests of everybody in the process.
The last point is the Congress. I want to say that the
Congress is not the performance wasteland that many people
portray. In fact, this hearing testifies to that. The use of
performance in authorizing and appropriation committees is
actually fairly impressive.
How can Congress better select key areas in performance to
review each year? How can it develop its own capacity to target
key areas that need to be reviewed? Can it work with the
President to agree on a set of targets and actually collaborate
on some kind of an assessment process like they do in the
Netherlands, like you see in other countries? Can we do that
here? It is a real question, obviously.
Can you marshal the forces of my old agency, the GAO, and
others to help you in this process, to synthesize what amounts
to almost a fire hydrant of information? One of the problems
with performance is we have too much information. We need a
synthesis and filtering of that to make is useful for
decisionmakers.
And, finally, I make this point in the testimony which I
have been making for years when I was at GAO. The one process
that we have that annually looks at all programs together is
the congressional budget process. The question is whether there
is a way to take the budget resolution and make that into a
performance vehicle. Can the budget resolution, in other words,
become more of a performance resolution alongside its
traditional functions? That is the question for the future.
Thank you.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you. Thank you very much for
those comments. You got a lot in, in a relatively short period
of time.
One of the things that we are talking about, using
performance in making budgetary decisions, we had a great
debate a month or so ago in the Senate on the future of the F-
22 fighter aircraft. It is an aircraft that is built--the
components are built in maybe 30, 40, 45 States. And so there
are a lot of States that have an economic interest in the
planes or sub-assemblies of the planes. They are very
expensive. And along with Senator McCain and Senator Levin, I
was very active in the floor debate with my colleagues saying,
a plane that we have been building all these years, its
mission-capable rate is down around 50 percent, where we spend,
I think, about $40,000 per flight hour for the aircraft that
has never flown a single mission in Iraq or Afghanistan, maybe
that is not an airplane we should continue to build several
hundred more.
By a fairly decent margin, we voted to pull the plug, and
that sort of thing does not happen often enough. But we did use
pretty good performance data, and I think it was instructive
and helpful to my colleagues as they made the tough decisions
for some of them.
I need to leave so I am not going to keep you long. I have
been summoned back into our Finance Committee markup. But let
me just ask a question, if I could, of all of you.
What suggestions do you have for the Obama Administration
on how to design and structure their new performance and
analysis framework? How can OMB support your efforts to create
a more results-oriented culture in your organization? I would
ask this really of the first three witnesses on this panel.
Mr. Fugate, would you just lead us off?
Mr. Fugate. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually consider
myself part of the President's team.
Senator Carper. You are.
Mr. Fugate. Within the team, I think my experience has been
that you have to define what the outcome is. You have to then
define what is your performance measures. You have to have
either a dashboard or a reporting system that everybody can
see. And then you have to hold managers accountable for those
outcomes given the resources and other external factors that
may affect the outcome. But you have to keep focused in on
where you are going.
And that is the thing that oftentimes is the hardest. You
identify what you are trying to do and you identify performance
measures, and then other issues come up. And then you start
getting away from that. And then you start getting distracted.
And then it no longer is a management issue, because we are
looking at something else.
That either tells me that we were not serious about
performance measures or we were not measuring the right thing,
because it was not important enough to the organization to stay
focused on it.
I think that is where we have to work in partnership with
OMB, is make sure we are measuring things that are important to
FEMA, that we hold our leadership accountable, we give them the
tools to measure it, and we are not out there just measuring
things that will get distracted and chase that rabbit down
another hole. It is core to our mission. Everybody understands
and gets why we have to improve, and we hold ourselves
accountable to that in such a way that, when you ask, I can
show you our report card, and I can show you what we are doing
to get better.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you. I like to use a football
analogy. Vince Lombardi, legendary former football coach of the
Green Bay Packers, used to say, ``Unless you are keeping score,
you are just practicing.'' And I would sort of lead that to the
next step. I think the next step would be not just unless you
are keeping score you are just practicing, but unless you
actually study the films of the games and the films of not only
your own games but your opponents' games, and sort of drill
down like we are doing in our schools, you are not doing
yourself much good. So thank you.
Ms. Suh.
Ms. Suh. I have two specific responses. First, on what I
think is working well, in the 2011 budget formulation process,
as we have talked about earlier, we are working with OMB on
something called high-priority performance goals. I think the
goals which are essentially small logic models or strategic
plans, if you will, are enormously helpful for us as a
Department in defining our priorities and figuring out what our
road maps are amongst those priorities. In addition, having it
be tied to an actual budget process I think is an enormously
helpful process that we are working through right now with OMB.
So on that side, I think that is working very well.
In terms of potential suggestions, I think all of us within
the Department and within OMB seem to find ourselves in a
disaggregated world, a world that has performance managers, a
world that has budget managers, a world that has policy people,
and those things are not often really working together as well
as they can. Even in the structures that exist at OMB and the
structures that exist at the Department of Interior, you tend
to, again, get these silos of people that are only focusing on
one thing and not really understanding the connections between
them.
And so as we struggle through this within our own agency,
it would be helpful to be able to partner with OMB in
developing ways to break down these silos and, again, to really
think through all of the elements of budget performance
management for personnel and policy systematically to
ultimately perform much more satisfactorily.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Ms. Snyder.
Ms. Snyder. I think one of the things that would be most
helpful to us from OMB is a focus on really what are cross-
cutting goals for government. All of us contribute in varied
and different ways to overall achievements that are needed in
government. So helping us know what those cross-cutting goals
are and how we could contribute to that, I think, is important.
The other thing is support for the identification of what
we call the ``vital few.'' In our programs, we literally could
have thousands and thousands of performance measures if we went
down that route. But identifying what are the vital few,
actually collecting the data, and then knowing that you have a
demonstrated result that you are held accountable for I think
is really the key to making it work inside an agency and really
anywhere in government.
And the other thing that I would say is this is one of
those things you cannot just talk about it once a year, so
talking about it, having regular, discussions, whether it is
through some council mechanism for performance improvement,
whatever that may take, it has to be kept on the front burner,
or it just simply gets caught up in the press of other
business.
And I think the only other thing that I would say is there
is a big difference between just reporting on things and folks
looking at it to see that you really did demonstrate a result,
a change, an improvement. And so talking about those changes
and improvement versus just saying we collected these data, I
think, is absolutely key to really making it a real program.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you.
Dr. Posner, I saw you nodding your head in agreement with
some of what Ms. Snyder was saying. Do you want to underline--
--
Mr. Posner. I thought it was very good. I appreciate those.
If I could just make a distinction, OMB wears two hats--the
budget hat and the management hat. The budget hat, good
budgeting includes good performance analysis. It always had.
Small ``p.'' I think the budget process needs to kind of become
more performance oriented so that the process is about a
performance discussion: What metrics are we going to achieve?
What targets are we going to achieve with the resources we
have? I think they have made progress in that area, starting
from GPRA, and I think that has got to continue.
But the management hat is different. The management hat
involves this kind of ironic way of promoting, learning, and
innovation from the top down. Not easy to do. Scorecards and
shame do not necessarily produce that. They produce short-term
gain, not necessarily long-term change. So I think the
challenge and trick for OMB is how can you instigate a culture
of learning and innovation that these people are talking about
here from the top down, and that is what remains to be seen.
Senator Carper. All right. Good.
Ms. Snyder, I said I was going to come back and raise the
issue of information technology, trying to infuse and really
expand the use of information technology in the delivery of
health care. There is about a $20 billion allocation in the
stimulus package. I had not planned on raising this, but any
comment you could give us, brief comments, in terms of how we
are using that money, how we are putting it to use?
Ms. Snyder. Well, the first thing we did when we got the
legislation was we used some of our performance management
tools. We took our Project Planning and Tracker, and we sat
down and we figured out what provisions have to get implemented
and when. How do you bring this program up to achieve
congressional intent? That is well underway. We have mapped all
of that.
The other thing is the key partners in this, in HHS, are
the Office of the National Coordinator, Dr. Blumenthal, and
working with CMS. We are joined, literally joined at the hip on
this and are working through the issues.
We believe that we are going to be on time in getting the
first regulation out so that we will be able to get information
back on what constitutes meaningful use, so we look forward to
working through that regulatory process. We are anticipating
probably a number of comments to that. There is a great
interest, as in the provider community.
We are also starting to look at what do we need to do
operationally to change underlying systems to bring all that
together to get the program up and running and to get payments
out the door, as Congress intended, as soon as we can.
It is a big job. Right now we look like we are on schedule,
according to our tracker right now.
Senator Carper. Great. Thank you for that update and for
the approach you all are taking to it.
I just received a more urgent summons to go to the Finance
Committee markup, so this will be my last question,
unfortunately, and I am going to direct it to Dr. Posner, if I
could.
You talked a bit about this already, but how can this new
Administration get agency leaders to use performance
information to improve their management decisions? I realize
you talked about this a bit already, but I want you to flesh it
out just a little bit more. How can the leaders of an
organization get its managers to pay more attention to outcomes
to achieve superior performance? Again, you have spoken to that
as well, but just kind of wrap it together in one response.
Mr. Posner. I think it is partly setting the tone at the
top that has been talked about here and setting a series of
discrete goals and objectives. I think the problem with many
initiatives at the State, local, and Federal levels, there is
too much and there are too many goals, too many data points.
And so it is the vital few, I think was mentioned, that is very
important, and targeting that and being persistent and
consistent with that in all phases of the process, including
paying attention to it in budgeting is very important.
Senator Carper. Thank you. I feel badly that I have to go,
but what we are working on just down the hall in the next
building is, I think, of historic consequence. What we are
doing here is really of great consequence as well. And as I
think Dr. Posner reflected, the number of people in this
audience today as compared to the number that might have been
here a few years ago is indicative that folks are starting to
better understand that importance.
We are looking at ways to enable me to maybe be in two
places at once, and I do not think we are going to allow human
cloning anytime soon. I joke with my colleagues that maybe what
we could is create cardboard cutouts of us, and the real person
could be do in one place, but maybe we have a cardboard cutout
here in this chair and a member of my staff--we would cut out
the lips, and then a member of my staff would be behind the
cardboard cutout and just ask the questions and say--people
always say that at the end of the hearing, ``It was a good
hearing, but he seemed stiff.'' [Laughter.]
We have not figured out how to perfect this just yet, but I
am really glad that I could be here. I am really glad that each
of you could be here, and our first two witnesses, one of whom
is still here. And I am grateful for the time and the thought
that you have put into your presentations, and this is
important. This is important stuff, and we are going to do
better. We have got to do better as a Nation and as a
government.
This hearing record will be open for the next 2 weeks for
the submission of some additional statements and questions. I
expect we will have some. There will not be a huge volume, but
there will be some. And if you receive those, I would just ask
for your cooperation in providing prompt responses to those
questions that might be submitted for the record.
With that, one last thank you, and on behalf of the people
of our country, the taxpayers of our country, I especially want
to say thank you.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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