Performance Management

Prodded by past scandals and court orders, the State of Tennessee today has one of the nation’s best performance-contracting systems for its child welfare program. In this report, Patrick Lester documents its evolution and use, and how Tennessee has avoided some of the common design flaws endemic in other social service programs using the performance-based contract model.

In August 2007, five urban regions were selected by the USDOTSDOT to participate in a path-breaking federal transportation initiative. Known as the Urban Partnership program, the initiative funded a total of $1.1 billion in grants for integrated transit, highway pricing, technology, and telecommuting strategies aimed at reducing traffic congestion in major urban areas. The Minneapolis - St. Paul region was selected to receive one of the five grants.

The outgoing Senate-confirmed appointees of President George W.

In 2006, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) authorized the Performance and Accountability Reporting (PAR) Pilot Program, which permitted executive branch agencies to use an alternative approach to reporting financial and performance information. Eleven departments and agencies volunteered to participate in the FY 2007 PAR Pilot Program. Three initiatives were held to assess and share lessons learned from the PAR Pilot Program.

The Department of Defense launched an ambitious effort to transform its vast network of back office mission support systems in 2001. It has since invested large amounts of funding in the effort. What progress has been achieved to date? What has been its impact? This report provides answers and insights into these questions as it assesses the progress of this effort.

This insight brief provides the necessary steps agency management must take to recognize the critical role that contract management plays in accomplishing agency missions.Contracting

Since the early 1990's, the federal government has been moving toward a more results oriented, performance-based management environment. Under performance-based acquisition (PBA), agencies tell the contractor the results they want, not how to do the work and then measure whether or not the results are achieved. Uneven adoption of PBA techniques appears to be partly due to holding contracting accountable for a program responsibility, as well as a lack of staff expertise.

The success of the Incident Command System (ICS) as a hierarchical-network organizational model in emergencies such as forest fires led to its being designated by the federal government as the preferred approach for responding to emergencies. However, it seemingly failed in the response to Hurricane Katrina. Professor Moynihan examines the Katrina case, as well as others, and identifies the conditions under which the ICS approach can be successful.