Focusing on results for kids: when it comes to children's issues, some Maryland legislators are trying to shift the focus of the legislative process from operations to results. It isn't easy.

• Author: Robison, Susan

What would state government look like if it paid more attention to the ends instead of the means? Could it mean better lives for children?

Maryland legislators want to know. And using a new approach to legislating that focuses on results for children and families, they're finding out.

Lawmakers everywhere are concerned that their actions help improve citizens' lives. But many times goals become blurred by the emphasis on discrete programs and the limitations of rigid legislative structures and processes that deal separately with individual issues and government agencies. In the mid-'90s, Maryland lawmakers decided that they needed a new approach to help them accomplish what they wanted for kids. They needed a way to make agencies focus collectively on making measurable changes in children's health, safety and school success--the desired results of their programs and activities--not just how they run their individual programs. And they needed to tie it to money.

Using a tactic widely known as "results-based decision making," Maryland lawmakers began an experiment. Five years later, they have modest results to boast of and plenty of lessons to share.

GETTING AWAY FROM WIDGETS

"Agencies have historically been loath to focus on results other than counting widgets," says Senate Budget Chair Barbara Hoffman. "They would tell us how many kids they saw, how many kids were in foster care. But if we said, 'Well, what happened to them?' They can't tell us." She explains that the new process is an attempt "to change how people think--especially bureaucrats."

Focusing on results sends a signal to the executive branch that legislators' expectations are shifting to measurable goals, and that they are serious about making a difference in children's lives. Members of the Maryland General Assembly knew that this different way of making policy and budget decisions would require extraordinary efforts. To help, the General Assembly created the Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families in 1999. The working group meets three to four times a year during the interim and is designed to help the work of other committees--not replace them. It identifies plans and partnerships that can help children and families and recommends changes in state policy, budgets, programs and regulations.

The work of the joint committee was among the General Assembly's steps that led to a budget hearing on results in 2001 as well as other legislative efforts. Delegate Mark K. Shriver, committee co-chair and one of its founding champions, says what makes the group work is its broad composition--majority and minority leaders from the House and Senate, members from each of the Senate's four standing committees, and representatives of every House committee that deals with children and family issues. The cross-cutting membership spreads the effects of the committee's work throughout the legislature. "It's critically important to have people who are in charge of the budget committee, among others," he maintains.

Following the "results-based decision-making" approach, the committee decided to begin by promoting a single result: school readiness. Armed with recent studies that support the importance of brain development in early childhood and the long-term benefits of high quality care and education for young children, the group identified key questions to guide its work. Then state agency leaders were asked to report as a group on their combined efforts to prepare young children for school. Working together, legislators and agency leaders identified an initial set of indicators for measuring the state's progress--including a developmental checklist recently created by the Maryland State Department of Education for kindergarten teachers to assess their students' physical, social and cognitive readiness for school. The committee insisted that the departments work together to report on the state's efforts and asked them to develop a plan to get results.

BUDGETING WITH AN EYE ON RESULTS

In 2001 all the committees from both houses that review the budgets of state agencies serving children and families convened for a results budget hearing. This joint hearing was a landmark event in Maryland legislators' efforts to focus legislative deliberations and government services on the bottom line: Is state government actually helping to improve the lives of children and families...