National Performance Mandates and Intergovernmental Collaboration

• Author: Odd J. Stalebrink
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074008326589
• Published date: 01 December 2009
• Date: 01 December 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

619

National Performance Mandates and

Intergovernmental Collaboration

An Examination of the Program Assessment

Rating Tool (PART)

Odd J. Stalebrink

Pennsylvania State University-Harrisburg, Middletown

This exploratory research is aimed at offering insights into how intergovernmental

dependencies influence Program Assessment Rating Tools (PART) ratings under

circumstances when federal funds and responsibility are delegated downward in the system.

The research offers formal support for the hypothesis that programs carried out under such

circumstances score relatively lower on those portions of the PART instrument that are

dependent on intergovernmental collaboration. The findings are important in that they draw

attention to an opportunity to improve the consistency of PART ratings across programs.

Specifically, they suggest that it may be necessary to revise the instrument to include questions

that recognizes and gives credit to efforts of intergovernmental collaborative efforts as part of

the PART scoring process.

Keywords: performance budgeting; intergovernmental collaboration; Program Assessment

Rating Tool; PART

On July 16, 2002 the President’s Management Council released the Office of

Management and Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). This

tool is a component of the President’s budget and performance integration initiative, an ini-

tiative aimed at ensuring that federal dollars produce the greatest result (U.S. OMB, 2007,

p. 9). The PART contributes to this initiative by requiring federal agencies to evaluate their

programs’ overall effectiveness in four assessment areas, including (a) program purpose

and design, (b) strategic planning, (c) program management, and (d) program results and

accountability. Depending on the scores received in each of these categories a single rating

is awarded using one of the following descriptors: ineffective, adequate, moderately effec-

tive, or effective. A program may also be given the descriptor of results not demonstrated

(RND) if the OMB determines that it lacks good performance measures and/or credible

performance data.

The goal of this exploratory research is to offer insights into the influence of intergovern-

mental dependencies on PART ratings when federal funds and responsibility are delegated

Author’s Note: The author wishes to thank three anonymous reviewers for their useful ideas and encourage-

ment of this research. Any remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the author.

Initial Submission: 08/27/2008

Accepted date: 09/07/2008

The American Review

of Public Administration

Volume 39 Number 6

November 2009 619-639

© 2009 The Author(s)

10.1177/0275074008326589

http://arp.sagepub.com

downward in the system, including responsibilities in program allocation decisions and ser-

vice delivery. Explicitly stated, the research objective is to examine the extent to which fed-

eral agencies’ dependency on grantees influence PART scoring. The inquiry considers the

influence of two types of intergovernmental dependencies. The first is federal agencies’

dependency on the ability and willingness of third party grantees to align their program goals

with national performance goals. Under the PART scoring framework, such alignment is

important because poorly aligned program goals are likely to translate into relatively low

scores on those portions of the PART instrument that assesses program performance.

The second dependency that is considered is federal agencies’ dependency on third par-

ties’ responsiveness to administrative requirements imposed by PART. These include

requirements imposed on grantees to (a) furnish federal partners with performance infor-

mation and accompanying credible evidence about the implementation and use of federal

funds, and (b) adopting managerial practices required under PART (i.e., financial manage-

ment practices). Given that state and local elected officials often bear the primary respon-

sibility for monitoring and overseeing the planning, management, and implementation of

activities when federal funds and responsibility are delegated downward in the system, a

large portion of these administrative requirements tend to originate with third party

grantees (U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO], 1995, p. 4).

The context for the study is block grant programs. This context was selected, in part,

because these programs tend to delegate relatively higher levels of responsibility to third-

party grantees compared with other program categories. This context was also selected

because block grant programs have consistently scored relatively poorly under PART com-

pared with other program types. Data furnished by the OMB, for example, illustrate that

8% of the block grant programs that were rated from 2002 through 2005 were rated inef-

fective and 39% received the rating RND (U.S. OMB, 2007, p. 106). By comparison, only

24% of the accumulated scores for all programs that were rated during these years received

the RND rating and only 4% received the rating ineffective (Mullen, 2006).

The research offers support for the hypothesis that block grant programs score relatively

lower on those sections of the PART instrument that are heavily influenced by the above-

mentioned intergovernmental dependencies, but that are less reliant on intergovernmental

collaboration. This finding is important in part because is it draws attention to opportuni-

ties for improving the consistency of PART ratings across programs. More specifically, it

suggests that it may be necessary to revise the instrument to include questions that recog-

nize and give credit to efforts of intergovernmental collaborative efforts as part of the scor-

ing process. The finding is also important in that it indicates that PART might be at odds

with an increasingly collaborative approach to governance, driven by a continued trend

toward devolution of responsibilities in the implementation of programs that are federally

funded. The PART moves against this “devolution tide” because it presumes that federal

agencies have legitimate authority to enforce the requirements that are included in the per-

formance measure framework (Radin, 2006).

In addition to the above finding, the research provides anecdotal insights into the mag-

nitude of the influence of the above described intergovernmental dependencies.

Specifically, the case study illustrates that 14 of the 27 (52%) responses that served as the

basis for the assessment were either exclusively or partially linked to these dependencies.

The weight of these responses accounted for more 70% of the overall PART score. The

620 The American Review of Public Administration