on President's list for eliminating due to performance: Department of Labor MSFW program

[Guest guest]

Of interest. Thanks to colleagues who sent it my way. Note section in red about 2/3 of way down.

tina.castanares@...

washingtonpost.com OMB Draws a Hit List of 13 Programs It Calls Failures By LeeWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, February 11, 2004; Page A29 Of the 128 programs that President Bush would curtail or eliminate in his 2005 budget, 13 are on the chopping block for the most basic of reasons: The administration believes they are not getting the job done.

They are among 400 evaluated over the last two years in an Office of Management and Budget initiative designed to more directly tie budgets to performance. Officials use the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), a 30-question survey, to evaluate such matters as whether a program is well-designed, resources can be managed effectively and results are reported with accuracy.

"Government programs, however worthy their goals, should demonstrate they are actually effective at solving problems," according to Bush's 2005 budget. ". . . . If we are not meeting our goals, then we should do something differently to address the shortfall."

The administration wants to shutter 13 programs deemed ineffective or unable to demonstrate results. Their combined budgets surpass $1 billion.

Clay III, deputy director for management at the OMB, said a poor review does not guarantee funding cuts, but "the idea is that performance information is an important variable to consider."

Another variable that and other OMB officials may want to consider is Congress, said C. Light, a government scholar at New York University. Lawmakers control the federal purse strings, and their views about programs often differ from the president's.

"[T]he word 'political' is always in front of the word 'budgeting,' " Light said. "Many of these programs have long political pedigrees, and you don't find out really who cares about them until you put them on the chopping block."

Among the programs Bush has targeted for elimination are four in the Department of Education. They include Even Start, which provides grants to promote literacy among low-income families, and the Perkins loan program, a $99 million effort to provide low-interest loans to needy college students.

The administration wants to redirect the funding to other literacy efforts and student aid programs. Also slated for closure are tech prep education state grants, a $107 million program to help students finish high school and attend technical colleges, and the $9 million occupational and employment information program that provides grants to help improve career choices for high school students.

Department of Education spokesman Bradshaw said officials there had no objection. "This is the administration's proposal, and we speak with one voice," he said.

Other programs have outlived their usefulness, in the OMB's view. The HOPE VI program, a 10-year-old multibillion-dollar effort by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish, replace and rehabilitate old public housing units, has met many of its goals, officials said. The program is more costly than others that serve the same low-income population, HUD officials argue. The White House wants to terminate the program, which had a budget of $570 million in 2003 and is slated to spend $149 million this year.

The proposal has drawn opposition from the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, a nonprofit that represents 60 of the nation's largest public housing managers. "Instead of cuts, we want to see the federal government strengthen its commitment to fund and support the innovative programs that are helping families find safe and affordable homes," said Sunia Zaterman, executive director.

At the Justice Department, only anecdotal evidence supports the notion that the juvenile accountability incentive block grants, which help fund improvements in state and local juvenile justice systems, have had an impact on juvenile crime, the OMB said.

The department's state criminal alien assistance program, with a budget of $297 million in 2004, reimburses states and local communities for part of the cost of jailing immigrants who commit crimes. But the program is "weak overall," the OMB found, and many correctional facilities get no help because reimbursements can be used by states "for any purpose."

The administration has tried to cut the program before, and failed. The states that receive the majority of the money -- California, Texas and New York -- have politically powerful delegations in Congress. Already, 55 lawmakers have cosponsored legislation to protect the funding.

"Local border counties just do not have the tax base to hold criminals the federal government doesn't have the time or inclination to hold and prosecute," said Rep. P. Ortiz (D-Tex.), co-chairman of the House border caucus. "Immigration is a national obligation and shouldn't be the financial burden of border communities."

At the Department of Homeland Security, the metropolitan medical response system has met its goal of helping 122 cities prepare local health authorities to cope with mass casualties from a terrorist attack, and its $50 million in annual funding should end, the OMB said.

At the Commerce Department, the small business innovation research program, a $4 million-a-year effort, has not demonstrated results, OMB officials said.

Similar problems plague the business information centers program within the Small Business Administration. The program provides computers, software and reference materials to small start-up companies. But it has been unable to demonstrate long-term benefits to small businesses and has spent $14 million to manage and support $475,000 in grants, according to an OMB analysis.

The Environmental Protection Agency's $9 million environmental education program duplicates state, local and private efforts to promote schooling about the environment and encourage careers related to the environment, according to the OMB. And the nuclear energy research initiative, an $11 million Energy Department program that funds research to solve technical hurdles to expanded use of nuclear energy, has measured performance in terms of projects awarded rather than results achieved.

At the Department of Labor, the migrant and seasonal farm workers program, which issues grants to help low-income farm workers become economically self-sufficient, duplicates other efforts and does not focus enough on training and employment, the OMB said.

If the administration has its way with even some of these programs, it raises the question of what would happen to their employees.

"Obviously, if there is a program that's terminated, one of the potential outcomes is that employees who work on the program could be terminated," said Chad Kolton, an OMB spokesman. "But it's equally as likely that they could be put to work on other programs that we would hope would be a little bit better use of their time and resources because they would be, ideally, programs that are more effective."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company