Budget Sets Specific Goals

President Clinton on Monday announced performance goals for the federal government upon which agency managers will be measured in fiscal 1999.

The first-ever governmentwide performance plan, laid out in Clinton's 1999 budget proposal, commits departments and agencies to dozens of specific objectives, ranging from the Energy Department's goal of dismantling about 500 nuclear weapons to the Transportation Department's goal of keeping the number of transportation-related deaths in 1999 below the 1995 level of 43,569. In addition, the administration proposes a set of 22 governmentwide objectives, including the elimination of the year 2000 computer problem.

The plan was mandated by the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, which also required each department and major agency to submit its own performance plan with its 1999 budget proposal. The administration's governmentwide plan is divided into chapters on management initiatives and program targets.

"In developing this budget, the administration for the first time could rely on performance measures and annual performance goals," Clinton said in his budget message. "As we continue to implement the law, my administration will focus more and more attention on how programs work, whether they are meeting their goals, and what we should do to make them better."

At the top of the administration's list of management objectives is fixing the year 2000 problem. No critical federal programs will fail because of the millennium bug, Clinton pledges. Other governmentwide management priorities include implementing the Results Act, improving financial management so agencies produce auditable financial statements, decreasing the number of troubled information technology investments, and increasing the use of performance-based service contracting. The administration also plans to focus on a number of specific programs, including student aid at the Education Department, Federal Aviation Administration reform, and IRS systems modernization.

"Agency managers have the primary responsibility to achieve these performance goals," the budget says. "They must actively and effectively carry out both interagency and agency-specific initiatives."

In the budget, the government's performance goals are divided among the nearly 20 budget functions under which federal programs are categorized by the Office of Management and Budget. Some of the goals set numeric targets for what agencies must achieve, while others establish less specific objectives.

Performance goals include:

• The State Department will seek to advance peace in the Middle East.
• NASA will successfully launch its four planned spacecraft missions within 10 percent of schedule and budget.
• The Defense Department will cut its civilian workforce by the levels it laid out in the Defense Reform Initiative.
• The National Weather Service will improve its lead time for flash flood warnings to 32 minutes and increase the warnings' accuracy to 82 percent.
• The Environmental Protection Agency will complete 136 Superfund cleanups.
• The Patent and Trademark Office will reduce the waiting time for patents by almost 2 months and cut the wait for trademarks by one month.
• The Head Start program will serve at least 30,000 more children than in 1998.
• The Consumer Product Safety Commission will reduce the number of product-related head injuries to children by 10 percent.
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will reduce workplace injuries by 20 percent in 50,000 workplaces over the next two years.
• The Social Security Administration will review the eligibility of 1,637,000 disability beneficiaries in 1999, up from 690,000 in 1997.
• The Justice Department will reduce violent crime to the 1996 level of 634 offenses per 100,000 population.