FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2008
Contact: OMB Communications, 202-395-7254
NEW SCORECARD DEMONSTRATES CONTINUED
COMMITMENT TO IMPROVEMENT
Washington, DC — OMB released the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) Scorecard for the second quarter of FY 2008, showing a continued trend for improved agency performance government-wide. The full scorecard can be found at www.results.gov.
This quarter, nearly 50 percent of agency “status” scores were Green, the highest possible, and more than 75 percent of all “progress” scores were Green. The Department of Labor, Social Security Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency all maintained green scores for both status and progress on all five government-wide PMA initiatives.
Each quarter, OMB grades 26 Federal departments and agencies on both status and progress in five major initiatives: Human Capital Management, Competitive Sourcing, Financial Performance, E-Government, and Performance Improvement. On the original scorecard in 2002, only one agency received a Green score for one initiative.
“All this ‘green’ is driven by agency interest in better management practices,” said Clay Johnson, OMB’s Deputy Director for Management. “Federal employees want their agencies to be more effective and efficient, and they continue to welcome the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to perform better, and better every year.”
A primary objective of the PMA is instilling management disciplines in all Federal agencies including more accurate tracking of receipts and payments; reduced improper payments; and strengthened controls to mitigate waste, fraud, and abuse. The PMA has accomplished this by providing greater transparency into our management challenges and setting clear goals to for addressing them. For example, when a GAO report on improper use of government charge cards was released last month, the report reflected that once the breakdown in the internal controls was found, agency leadership took quick action to recover the funds and discipline those individuals involved in the wrongdoing. Now agencies are in the process of implementing stricter charge card policies and more comprehensive training to prevent incidences of misuse before they occur.
“We are encouraged that agencies and auditors have more tools today to bring to light the unacceptable misuse of credit card misuse,” said Danny Werfel, OMB’s Deputy Controller and head of the Financial Performance initiative. “With these tools, agencies are taking immediate action to address charge card misuse through disciplinary actions and other measures and are now tightening controls and policies to eliminate abuses of the charge card program.”###
