Orszag on PART: Exactly!

I wanted to follow up on Craig's post from earlier today about OMB Director Peter Orszag's confirmation hearing last week. In addition to some rational, fact-based statements on federal contracting, Orszag also made some pretty insightful comments during the hearing about the Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). Orszag's comments mirrored some of the concerns OMB Watch has had about the PART for years. Orszag testified that PART is "not particularly effective" and that it was not widely known within federal agencies, according to a recent GAO survey of program managers. An article ($) in BNA last week shares details:

Orszag said the outgoing administration's rating tool focused "too much on process and not enough on outcomes." As one example, he noted that PART evaluates an aspect of Internal Revenue Service operations by measuring the number of audits IRS conducts each year, rather than how well IRS achieves compliance rates. "I'd like to see a system that tells IRS to hit a certain compliance rate in the tax code," Orszag said. "Don't just tell me your audit rate. It's crucially important we revamp and revise the program in consultation with agencies and Congress."

Exactly! Orszag understands there are problems with not only the inner workings of the PART, but also with the process that was used to create it. One of the most refreshing things about Orszag's nomination and confirmation as the head of OMB is that he just seems to get it on a wide variety of issues (including contracting and health care). Orszag seems genuinely interested in developing tools and metrics that collect meaningful information about federal program performance. He pledged as much during his testimony last week. But he also seems to understand there is a right way and a wrong way to do that. That's exactly right!