United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1998-06-17 monographic deposited born digital 18 p. GA 1.13:T-RCED-98-229 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229 P0b002ee1803a0232 f:rc98229t DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-23 GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229 T-RCED-98-229 Strategic planning Reporting requirements Economic development Economically depressed areas Community development Program evaluation Lending institutions Community Development Financial Institutions Fund Testimony RCED GAO discussed the preliminary results of its ongoing review of the administration of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, focusing on: (1) the first year's performance of the CDFI and Bank Enterprise Award (BEA) programs and opportunities for improving their effectiveness; (2) the Fund's progress in developing performance measures for awardees and systems to monitor and evaluate their progress; (3) the impact of the BEA program on banks' investments in CDFIs and distressed communities; and (4) CDFI's progress in meeting the strategic planning requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) as of January 1998, the Fund had entered into assistance agreements with 26 of the 31 CDFIs that received awards in 1996; (2) these agreements include performance goals and measures that were based on the business plans submitted by awardees in their application packages and negotiated between the Fund and the awardees, as the CDFI Act requires; (3) these agreements are consistent with the program's objectives; (4) using the Results Act for guidance, GAO found that the performance measures in the assistance agreements generally assess activities rather than accomplishments reflecting the results of activities; (5) GAO further found that although the performance measures in the assistance agreements are generally related to specific goals, they do not always address all key aspects of the goals, and most assistance agreements lack baseline data that would facilitate tracking progress over time; (6) the Fund has developed reporting requirements for awardees to collect information for monitoring their performance and is developing post-award monitoring procedures for assessing their compliance with their assistance agreements; (7) the Fund currently does not have a system for evaluating the impact of awardees' activities; (8) although the Fund has disbursed about 80 percent of the fiscal year 1996 BEA awards funds, it is difficult to determine the extent to which the program has encouraged the 38 awardees to increase their investments in distressed communities; (9) in addition, some banks do not collect all of the data on their activities needed to guarantee that increases in investments under the BEA program are not being offset by decreases in other investments in these distressed areas; (10) furthermore, the Fund cannot be assured that banks' increased investments remain in place because it does not require banks to report any material changes in the status of these investments; (11) the CDFI Fund's strategic plan contains all of the elements required by the Results Act and the Office of Management and Budget's associated guidance, but these elements generally lack the clarity, specificity, and linkage with one another that the act envisioned; (12) although the plan identifies key external factors that could affect the Fund's mission, it does not relate these factors to the Fund's strategic goals and objectives and does not indicate how the Fund will take the factors into account when assessing awardees' progress toward goals; and (13) in addition, the plan does not describe the relationship of its activities to similar activities in other government agencies. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229/html/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229/pdf/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229.pdf GAO/T-RCED-98-229 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-229 Testimony GAO/T-RCED-98-229; Community Development: Early Results of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund's Programs; Strategic planning Reporting requirements Economic development Economically depressed areas Community development Program evaluation Lending institutions Community Development Financial Institutions Fund Public Law 103-325