OMBlog

Moving Forward our Regulatory Partnerships with Canada

U.S. Federal Departments and Agencies together with Canadian Ministries have been working to develop new frameworks for cooperation since the release of the U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) Joint Forward Plan last August. Collectively, these documents outline major objectives for bilateral cooperation over the next three to five years in specific areas of regulatory activity.

The Regulatory Partnerships are a significant step toward deepening our cooperation efforts.  The newly developed frameworks outline how U.S. and Canadian agencies will manage cooperative regulatory activities moving forward.  The frameworks address such issues as governance between the agencies, means for obtaining input from stakeholders, and ways to promote more effective and efficient regulatory engagement between the two countries for the ultimate benefit of both countries’ consumers, manufacturers and producers.  As Executive Order 13609 states, in meeting shared challenges involving health, safety, labor, security, environmental, and other issues, international regulatory cooperation can identify approaches that are at least as protective as those that are or would be adopted in the absence of such cooperation while also reducing unnecessary differences in regulatory requirements.

As I stated in my August blog post, Moving Forward on International Regulatory Cooperation, “Regulatory cooperation has to mean more than just “aligning” specific rules across the border; such a rule-by-rule approach is neither practical nor scalable enough to meet our ever-changing regulatory environments. We need to think more broadly and creatively about how to build cooperative frameworks to achieve our economic and regulatory policy goals in a more dynamic manner.” And as outlined in the Regulatory Partnership Statements and detailed Work Plans released today, the United States and Canada are already demonstrating this broad and creative thinking through cooperation activities, including:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) and Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) will work to establish a single application for crop protection products, like pesticides, that will be accepted in both countries. In addition, the Agencies will develop information technology to facilitate the joint review and processing of pest control product applications submitted to both countries.

U.S. Department of Transportation and Transport Canada

The U.S. Department of Transportation and Transport Canada will coordinate and collaborate on Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communications technology and applications development and implementation for light- and heavy-duty vehicles to ensure they work seamlessly across the border no matter the supplier. This work will include, where appropriate, joint planning and priority-setting for research supporting potential rulemaking actions, collaborative research projects, as well as information exchanges to support analyses as we develop new V2V and V2I architecture and standards.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration – Health Canada

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine and Health Canada’s Veterinary Drugs Directorate will coordinate their respective submission and review processes for veterinary drug applications. The objective is to enable simultaneous product reviews and move toward simultaneous product availability.  The respective agencies will coordinate standards development and assessment activities pertaining to the pre-market evaluation of veterinary drugs, as appropriate. Further work in this area will also explore the availability of electronic templates for veterinary drug applications.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Fisheries and Ocean

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) will undertake greater cooperation in the environmental management of the marine aquaculture sector, including by  comparing regulatory environmental management objectives and outcomes of net pen aquaculture, cooperating on farmed to wild fish interactions, and cooperating on regulatory oversight and management of off-short aquaculture.

These ambitious plans will take time to institutionalize, but I am confident that together with our Canadian partners we can produce meaningful and lasting results. 

For RCC updates and information on agency progress, or to view RPS and Work Plan documents, please visit www.trade.gov/rcc. 

Howard Shelanski is the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Behind the Buy #3: A Simple and Intuitive Approach for IT Procurement

Author’s Note: The "Behind the Buy" podcast features audio stories told by members of the Federal acquisition workforce who have successfully executed best practice IT contracting strategies from the TechFAR and Digital Services Playbook to help their agency meet its mission.

In this third Behind the Buy podcast, OFPP Administrator Anne Rung interviews Traci Walker, a founding member of the U.S. Digital Service’s procurement team.  During the episode, Traci explains how to make IT procurement simple and intuitive by using the TechFAR and Digital Services Playbook to drive strategies and implementation approaches for customer agencies such as the Forest Service, Small Business Administration, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Traci used Play #3’s simple and intuitive approach to enable tech companies to propose software support services to the Government on an incremental and iterative basis. This key play reduced administrative burden by reducing the Government’s commitment to contract solutions that fail performance standards. It also granted flexibility for contractors by enabling them to propose solutions that meet the Government’s objectives without having to incorporate predefined solutions. Traci worked with GSA to expand this approach across the Federal Government and satisfy agencies’ needs for agile IT services.

Contracting officers must communicate with key stakeholders throughout a procurement, including contractors and agency program staff. As noted during the interview, this Playbook approach allows for tailored communication to key stakeholders. Contracting officers use Reverse Industry Day events to hear best practice ideas and new solutions from contractors. For internal stakeholders, contracting officers use acquisition strategy sessions to engage customer’s concerns and teach them how to write effective solicitations. Traci tells listeners how to build flexibility into the procurement process by briefing all key stakeholders early and often and adapting to unforeseen challenges. 

  Listen Here

Better data, Better decisions, Better government

A year ago, Congress passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, or the DATA Act. Since then, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) have engaged with the communities that create and use this data and taken important first steps towards creating a more data driven government, and making federal data more transparent and available to the American people. Today marks the beginning of the next phase of implementation of the DATA Act.

Rolling Out Data Standards

Currently, the Federal Government produces huge amounts of data about how it spends money, but in some cases the same words are used in different ways. These inconsistencies make it difficult to use this data in a comprehensive way. Over a two-year period, starting today, the DATA Act requires Federal agencies to streamline this fragmentation and report Federal funds, broken down into specific categories like how much funding an agency receives from Congress and how much they are spending on specific projects and awards. It also requires agencies to use common government-wide data standards when posting that information to USAspending.gov – standards that aren't currently applied across all agencies for all uses.

Today we are beginning the rollout of 57 data standards. Some are final based on public input we have already received, and others will require additional input as we finalize them this summer. As a result of input from our partners in Congress, industry stakeholders, federal agencies, and taxpayers through feedback on our public GitHub collaboration space, 15 final data standards available today will be used by all agencies for all federal spending data posted on USAspending.gov, the Federal Government’s one-stop shop for spending data.  We are also releasing 12 additional proposed data standards and 30 existing data elements that we are in the process of standardizing across the government. Conversation and collaboration with the public has been key to our progress thus far and we encourage you to visit our online collaboration space on GitHub for more information on these proposed standards.

In addition to data standards, we have been testing new formats for exchanging data across the Federal Government. In particular, Treasury’s pilots have demonstrated how we can digitally tag award data through the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format. This process is called the DATA Act Schema and it has been released online and will continue to be refined with public input.

Helping Agencies & the DATA Act Playbook

To ensure the government has the necessary tools to adopt these standards within the two-year timeline, OMB also issued guidance to agencies on Increasing Transparency of Federal Spending by Making Federal Spending Data Accessible, Searchable, and Reliable. And to assist agencies with implementation, Treasury created a DATA Act Playbook with eight key steps that, if followed together, will help agencies leverage existing capabilities to drive implementation of the DATA Act. Treasury will continue to refine the Playbook and will hold meetings and workshops with agencies to provide updates on DATA Act activities, encourage agency collaboration, and share important insights and information.

Finally, leveraging the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we have begun a pilot program to test and explore ways to simplify the reporting process for recipients of federal grants. We are approaching this pilot in a non-traditional way, with the goal of using the next two years to identify and test multiple ways to improve.  To start, today, we have launched a repository for common data elements and a new section of Grants.gov  with information about the grants lifecycle, which will test how data standards can translate to actual time saved in reporting and how to put all information about Federal grants in one place.

While we are pleased with the progress that has been made so far on the DATA Act implementation within existing budgetary resources, this is a complex project with challenges ahead. The FY 2016 Budget proposes $84 million to allow agencies to make progress in implementing the DATA Act and increase Federal spending transparency. With better data, we will make better decisions and ensure that every dollar is well spent.

For more information about our efforts under the DATA Act and how the public can participate, please visit USAspending HERE.

David Mader is the Controller of the Office of Federal Financial Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

David Lebryk is the Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Celebrating America's Workforce

Federal service is public service. That’s easy to forget sometimes because so much of what Federal employees do goes on behind the scenes. But America’s workforce affects every American every day.

Each day, all across this country, many Americans are fortunate to wake up in a society where they have clean water to drink, safe food to eat, beautiful parks, affordable and quality health care, and a growing economy.

Providing these and countless other services to the American people requires a Federal workforce that is talented, well-trained, and engaged in the workplace, is led by executives who inspire and motivate, and draws from the rich diversity of the people it serves.

The President is committed to supporting the model Federal workforce. In his proclamation on Public Service Recognition Week, the President said:

“In the face of difficult challenges, public servants give new life to the values that bind our Nation together. Civil servants are scientists and teachers, social workers and first responders -- they are the leaders of today's progress and the innovators of tomorrow's breakthroughs. With determination and resolve, they defend our country overseas and work to widen the circle of opportunity and prosperity here at home. And despite tough circumstances -- including pay freezes, budget cuts, sequestration, and a political climate that too often does not sufficiently value their work -- these exceptional leaders continue to make real the fundamental truth that people who love their country can change it.

With more than 2 million civilian workers and more than 1 million active duty service members, our Federal workforce represents extraordinary possibility. Our Government can and must be a force for good, and together, we can make sure our democracy works for all Americans. We know there are some things we do better when we join in common purpose, and with hard work and a commitment worthy of our Nation's potential, we can keep our country safe, guarantee basic security, and ensure everyone has a shot at success.“

We could not agree more. Federal service attracts people who are passionate about what they do. The mission of their agencies and their commitment to serving the American people are what drives them. And they come from – and work in – every corner of the country, reflecting the rich diversity and talent of this great country.

From the recent college graduate to the mid-career professional to the soon-to-be retiree, our employees are here to make a difference and to serve their country.

As we kick off Public Service Recognition Week, we hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on how America’s Federal workforce makes your life better each and every day.  And we hope you’ll join the President in recognizing the hard work and dedication of our nation’s public servants. They deserve our gratitude and appreciation.

Katherine Archuleta is the Director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Beth Cobert is the Deputy Director for Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

House Republicans Show Their Hand: Committee Spending Levels Shortchange Key Priorities

Today, House Republicans marked-up their first two funding bills for fiscal year (FY) 2016 in full committee. They also released planned funding levels, known as 302(b) allocations, for the 10 remaining appropriations bills that fund the rest of the government.  In doing so, House Republicans have started to show how they plan to budget at discretionary funding levels that are the lowest in a decade, adjusted for inflation. The bills released so far, along with the targets for the remaining bills, show that the Republican budget funding levels will force cuts compared to the President’s Budget in areas important to the economy and the middle-class, ranging from research to education to environmental protection, as well as in national security priorities, ranging from peacekeeping and foreign assistance to the base defense budget.

These funding levels are the result of Congressional Republicans’ decision to lock in the funding cuts imposed by sequestration. Sequestration was never intended to take effect: rather, it was supposed to threaten such drastic cuts to both defense and non-defense funding that policymakers would be motivated to come to the table and reduce the deficit through smart, balanced reforms. The President's Budget would reverse these cuts going forward, replacing the savings with commonsense spending and tax reforms in order to make investments important to families, the economy, and our national security. Unfortunately, the bills and appropriations targets released today double down on a very different approach.

Table 1. Proposed Republican Budget Cuts Relative to the President’s 2016 Budget Request*

• Title I.  The House Republican budget would result in $1.3 billion less in funding for Title I, equivalent to funding for nearly 5,000 schools, 18,500 teachers and aides, and 2.1 million students.
• IDEA.  The House Republican budget would result in over $450 million less in funding for students with disabilities, an amount equivalent to what is necessary to support nearly 7,800 special education teachers, paraprofessionals and other related staff. 
• Job training.  The House Republican budget would serve 2.4 million fewer people with job training and employment services, including help finding jobs and skills training.

Research and Development

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) (Labor-Health and Human Services-Education).  The House Republican budget would lead to more than $1.7 billion less in funding for NIH, translating into 1,400 fewer new grants and adversely impacting research across all disease areas. The House Republican budget also risks squeezing out new initiatives proposed in the President’s Budget, such as a major investment in Precision Medicine, an innovative approach to disease prevention which takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles to give clinicians the tools to better understand the complex mechanisms underlying a patient’s condition and the ability to better predict which treatments will be effective. 
• National Science Foundation (NSF) (Commerce-Justice-Science). The House Republican budget would lead to about 350 fewer research grants at the National Science Foundation (NSF), affecting about 4,900 researchers, technicians, and students. This reduction would slow the pace of discovery across fields of science and engineering – including areas like advanced manufacturing, clean energy, cybersecurity, and neuroscience – inhibiting research essential to U.S. innovation and economic competitiveness.
• Clean energy investments (Energy and Water Development). Most clean energy research and development (R&D) is funded in the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, one of the two bills House Republicans have already marked up in committee. As described above, the bill cuts key R&D and other clean energy investments by 40 percent or more relative to the President’s budget, including reductions of 55 percent to solar energy investments and 49 percent to manufacturing, sharply reducing the number of innovative projects the Federal government will support.

Housing Assistance, Homelessness, and Supportive Services

• Permanent supportive housing (Transportation-Housing and Urban Development).   The House Republican budget would support at least 15,000 fewer families with rapid rehousing, at least 23,000 fewer units of permanent supportive housing targeted to the chronically homeless, and 60,000 fewer special-purpose vouchers, which would provide needed housing assistance to families, veterans, and tribal families experiencing homelessness, victims of domestic or dating violence, youth aging out of foster care, and families with children in the foster care system for whom assistance could facilitate reunification.
• Housing choice vouchers (Transportation-Housing and Urban Development). The House Republican budget would provide housing assistance to about 34,000 fewer very low-income families because Public Housing Authorities would not be able to reissue vouchers or would have to terminate assistance.
• Rural housing (Agriculture).  The House Republican budget would provide affordable rental housing for 19,000 fewer rural families and households headed by older Americans or individuals with disabilities that depend on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service Rental Assistance program to be able to remain in their homes.
• Home and community-based supportive services (Labor-Health and Human Services-Education). The House Republican budget would underfund programs that provide services to older Americans and individuals with disabilities potentially resulting in more than 500,000 fewer rides to doctors and grocery stores, 200,000 fewer hours of assistance to seniors unable to perform activities of daily living, and 100,000 fewer hours of care for dependent adults in supervised, protective group settings.

Public Health, Safety, and Other Core Functions of Government

• Tax enforcement and taxpayer services (Financial Services and General Government).  The House Republican allocations target their deepest cuts on the bill that funds Wall Street Reform and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS budget has already been cut by roughly 17 percent, adjusted for inflation, since 2010. If the Financial Services and General Government cuts are distributed across the board, IRS funding would be cut by roughly 23 percent, adjusted for inflation, since 2010. Funding cuts made to date have already had severe consequences; the additional cuts are so extreme that the IRS would likely have to take even more drastic measures to absorb them.

o   IRS customer service levels have dropped to unacceptable levels with taxpayers lining up outside Taxpayer Assistance Centers for hours to get service and more than 8 million taxpayer calls being disconnected due to overloaded IRS phone systems.  With the additional cuts that would result from the Republican budget, assistance to taxpayers would continue to deteriorate and critical information technology investments to improve customer service and efficiency would not be made, introducing a risk of major system failures.

o   The IRS has lost 5,000 key enforcement personnel since 2010, hamstringing its enforcement capacity. As a result of these reductions to enforcement personnel, the Federal government loses billions of dollars of tax revenue each year from corporations and individuals who get away with not paying the taxes they owe.  Additional cuts would exacerbate reductions to tax enforcement activities, further increasing the deficit by approximately $2 billion.

• Law enforcement agents (Commerce-Justice-Science).  The House Republican budget would result in 300 fewer Federal agents to combat violent crime, pursue financial crimes, and ensure national security; nearly 70 fewer Assistant U.S. Attorneys; and 250 fewer prison guards to maintain the safe and secure confinement of inmates in federal prisons.
• Ryan White HIV/AIDs program (Labor-Health and Human Services-Education).  The House Republican budget would lead to 5,000 fewer patients receiving critical antiretroviral treatments through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and 125,000 fewer medical visits at Ryan White clinics.
• Indian Health Service (IHS) (Interior and Environment). The House Republican budget would require IHS to reduce health services purchased for emergency care, specialty care, and capacity to address primary care shortages for a population that suffers disproportionately from acute and chronic health issues, resulting in approximately 3,300 fewer inpatient and 95,000 fewer outpatient visits, despite the fact that the need for these services only continues to grow.
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Interior and Environment).  The House Republican budget would reduce the number of inspections the EPA would be able to conduct for non-compliance with environmental laws to protect the water we drink and the air we breathe, delay criminal enforcement actions for polluters, postpone efforts to save taxpayer dollars by consolidating EPA facilities, and decrease support for state and tribal partners in their implementation of the Nation's environmental laws to protect the public’s health.

Infrastructure

• National Parks (Interior and Environment).  The House Republican budget would delay roughly three-quarters of the 35 major construction projects and close to half of the 464 rehabilitation projects planned for 2016 at our national parks.
• Weatherization Assistance Program (Energy and Water Development). The Republican Budget would reduce funding for Weatherization Assistance Program grants by nearly 10 percent from the President’s Budget level, which would result in about 3,000 fewer low-income households receiving residential energy retrofits that would lower their bills and make their homes more energy efficient.

National Security

• Peacekeeping (State and Foreign Operations).  The House Republican budget would severely reduce international assistance compared to the President’s Budget. That would translate into nearly 4,700 fewer peacekeepers in some of the most vulnerable parts of the world if the cut were applied directly to ongoing UN missions, reducing the number of personnel available to protect civilians, maintain peace and security, assist in disarmament, demobilize and reintegrate former combatants, support the organization of elections, protect and promote human rights, and assist in restoring rule of law.
• Other foreign assistance (State and Foreign Operations). Compared to the President’s Budget, the Republican Budget would impose double-digit percentage cuts to funding for U.S. diplomacy and a broad range of programs critical to the President’s National Security Strategy, at a cost to American global leadership.  The lower funding levels would hamper our efforts to promote economic and security engagement in Central America and help stem illegal immigration, scale back our commitments to address the urgent and growing threat posed by climate change, and harm critical programs that enhance the ability of our partners and allies to counter terrorism, control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and build both civilian and military security capacity, ultimately causing risks to accrue to our national security.

Finally, the Republican budget holds defense funding to sequestration levels and skirts the budget caps by using a funding mechanism intended for wars to pay for non-war costs, despite the widely acknowledged and cynical “gimmick” nature of the approach.  Governing responsibly means clearly articulating policy priorities and providing a strategic, credible, and responsible investment plan to fund them, which enables the military to fully execute a long-term strategy. In contrast to the Republican budgets, the President’s Budget is clear, realistic, and strategic. It makes long-term investments above the sequestration levels to restore military readiness over the next several years, and responsibly funds recapitalization and modernization programs needed to ensure our continued technological edge. 

Shaun Donovan is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Making a Difference by Funding What Works

Yesterday, the President signed H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which passed both the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. Not only will the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 reform Medicare’s physician payment system to incentivize quality and value and extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program, it also includes a two-year extension of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (“Home Visiting”). The Home Visiting program, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, funds States, territories, and tribal entities to develop and implement voluntary, evidence-based home visitation programs in which families that choose to participate receive advice, guidance, and other help from nurses, social workers, or other trained professionals during pregnancy and the first years of a child’s life.

The Home Visiting program builds upon decades of scientific research showing that home visits improve the lives of children and families by preventing child abuse and neglect, supporting positive parenting, improving maternal and child health, and promoting child development and school readiness.  This research also shows that evidence-based approaches can provide a positive return on investment to society.  By law, Home Visiting Program grantees must spend the majority of their grants to implement models that have been shown to improve child health and to be cost effective, with up to 25 percent of funding available to try out and rigorously evaluate other promising approaches.  

Thanks to investments made in the Affordable Care Act, the number of children and parents served by the Home Visiting program has tripled since 2012, reaching 115,545 in 2014, and the number of home visits provided has quadrupled, with more than 1.4 million home visits provided over the past three years. As part of a broader investment in early childhood education, the President’s Budget includes $15 billion in funding for the Home Visiting Program over the next 10 years, which would greatly expand grantees’ ability to reach at-risk children and families with evidence-based home visiting services. While less ambitious, the extension in the Medicare payment reform bill is a strong bipartisan endorsement of this important program, and will let grantees continue and build on their efforts to date.  

Home Visiting is just one example of a program that the President’s Budget proposes to expand on the basis of strong evidence that it delivers value for the American people. Some of these programs, like Home Visiting, are already serving tens of thousands of people, but could have a larger impact with greater reach. Others have proven so effective in small experiments that we think they should be tried on a larger scale. Below are just a few examples of areas where the Budget proposes to expand proven practices.

The President’s Budget is able to make these important investments in evidence-based efforts, in large part because it reverses sequestration, freeing up resources for important national priorities. 

• Getting more people back to work and increasing their incomes.  The Budget includes a number of proposals to expand proven approaches to get more people back to work at better-paying jobs. For example, the Budget includes a $100 million increase to expand reemployment services and eligibility assessments for the one-third of unemployment insurance beneficiaries who are most likely to run out of benefits before becoming reemployed.  A high-quality randomized control trial in Nevada found that in comparison to their peers who did not receive these services, participants got back to work nearly a month faster, and they earned over $2,600 more than their peers over the next year and half.

• Ending Homelessness.  Chronic homelessness was long considered an intractable problem, but a broad body of research, including rigorous evaluations, demonstrated that permanent supportive housing is more cost-efficient and effective than other approaches. Various studies have shown that permanent supportive housing not only improves housing stability but can also reduce costs for emergency department and inpatient services.

Studies on the Cost Effectiveness of Permanent Supportive Housing

By investing in evidence-based approaches and partnering with communities across the country, the Administration has made significant progress toward the President’s ambitious goals of ending homelessness, especially among veterans.  In January 2015, New Orleans, Louisiana became the first major American city to end veterans’ homelessness entirely, and several major cities, including Salt Lake City, Utah and Phoenix Arizona, have ended chronic homelessness among veterans.  The overall number of veterans experiencing homelessness has declined by 33 percent—nearly 25,000 veterans—since 2010, and, with continued focus from Federal, State, and local partners, we are on a path to end veteran homelessness by the end of this year.                                                        

The 2016 Budget includes $2.5 billion for HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants, which will support 15,000 additional families through rapid rehousing and an estimated 25,500 new units of permanent supportive housing targeted to the chronically homeless, strategies that have been proven to work.  These funds, in coordination with targeted special purpose Housing Choice Vouchers, will support the Administration’s efforts to end chronic homelessness in 2017 and to make significant progress in ending homelessness across other populations.

• Reducing Crime and Recidivism.  The Administration is committed to a comprehensive strategy to contain incarceration costs over the long term by facilitating inmates’ transition into society to reduce recidivism rates, increase public safety, and strengthen communities.  The Budget includes a $145 million increase for programs to reduce recidivism and reentry and address the cycle of incarceration.  These investments cover a range of activities, including expanding capacity for correctional education programs.  A recent high-quality study that looked across all of the research for these programs found that participants had a 43 percent lower chance of recidivating and 13 percent higher chance of becoming employed than similar individuals who didn’t participate in the program. 

These are just a few examples of programs the 2016 Budget would expand on the basis of strong evidence of effectiveness. We look forward to working with Congress on making additional investments in these and other evidence-based programs. 

For more about the Administration’s efforts to use rigorous evaluation and data to improve programs, check out OMB’s Evidence and Evaluation Website. 

Aviva Aron-Dine is the Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

A High-Performing Government of the Future

Since the beginning of the Administration, the President has made it a priority to identify and eliminate inefficient or unnecessary spending, and advance efforts that help sustain a high-performing, cost-effective Government for the American people.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a key partner in the Administration’s efforts to create more efficiencies and cost savings.  Every year, GAO releases its report identifying opportunities for Congress and the Executive Branch to reduce or eliminate inefficiencies and achieve savings across programs.  In addition, GAO provides helpful updates on actions the Administration and Congress have taken on recommendations from previous reports.  In today’s 2015 annual report, GAO’s findings recognize the overall progress the Administration has made since the initial 80 areas of fragmentation, overlap, or duplication were identified in 2011. For example:

• GAO found that Congress and the Executive Branch have made progress on addressing 348 of the 440 (76 percent) broad areas needing attention over the past four years.
• GAO found that the Executive Branch addressed or partially addressed 317 of the 384 (83 percent) recommended actions directed to the Executive Branch.
• GAO found that Congress addressed or partially addressed 31 of the 74 (42 percent) recommended actions directed to Congress.

Many of GAO’s recommendations deal with some of the most complex and challenging areas across the Federal government. Fully addressing them is a long-term process that in many cases will take years to implement – a fact that GAO recognizes.

Under the President’s Management Agenda, we are accelerating progress made to reduce administrative overhead, improve training and job programs, reduce the government’s real estate costs, institutionalize data-driven reviews, reform acquisition, and driver smarter IT delivery.  A more complete picture of this Administration’s progress in reducing duplication, fragmentation, and overlap across the Federal Government can be found HERE.

A few examples where the Administration has made progress on GAO’s recommendations as well as the President’s Management Agenda include:

• Saving on Real Property Costs.  In 2013, the Administration issued the Freeze the Footprint (FTF) policy to freeze the Federal Government’s real estate footprint and restrict the growth of excess or underutilized properties.  Freeze the Footprint was the first government-wide policy that established and required federal agencies to identify offsets (i.e., disposals) of existing property to support new property acquisitions, and that set a timeline for agencies to freeze their real property footprint. The policy was a success. Now federal agencies have frozen, reduced, or are on a path to freeze their baseline by the end of FY 2015.  For example, Agencies achieved a 21.4 million square foot reduction in office and warehouse space between FY 2012 and FY 2014. And in FY 2014 alone, for all domestic owned building types, the government disposed of 7,350 buildings, 47 million square feet of space, and eliminated $17 million of annual operation and maintenance cost as a result of Freeze the Footprint.  Building on this success, just last month the Administration issued the National Strategy for Real Property (National Strategy) and the Reduce the Footprint policy. Agencies will be required not only to continue to freeze but also reduce their real property footprint over the next several years beginning in FY 2016.

• Reorganizing STEM Education Programs.  The Nation's competitiveness depends on the ability to improve and expand STEM learning in the United States.  Over the past two years, the Administration has made considerable progress toward creating a more cohesive framework for delivering STEM education.  Guided by the Federal STEM Education Five-Year Strategic plan and a significant reorganization of programs, agencies are increasing coordination, strengthening partnerships, and identifying ways to leverage existing resources to improve the reach of agency assets.  The number of different STEM programs has been cut from over 220 to fewer than 140, a reduction of roughly 40 percent.  The Budget builds on these efforts and continues to reduce fragmentation, ensuring that investments are aligned with the Strategic Plan.  The President’s FY 2016 Budget invests more than $3 billion in this critical area, including $200 million for K-12 education in the Department of Education's Math and Science Partnerships and National Science Foundation programs providing $338 million for graduate fellowships, $62 million for graduate traineeships, and $135 million for improving undergraduate education.

• Improving Employment and Training Programs. The Administration, in partnership with Congress, has taken a number of steps to improve coordination and alignment across Federal training and employment programs.  Last year’s passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) made significant improvements in integration and coordination of the Federal workforce system. The Administration recently released the WIOA draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which presents a vision of the law that furthers the goals of enhanced coordination across Federal programs.  These rules, developed jointly by the Departments of Labor and Education, lay out a common set of performance measures that will improve accountability in the workforce system and improve transparency.  Last year, the Vice President also led an across-the-board review of job training program to identify ways to make them more job-driven and ensure that they train people for jobs that exist today. This effort culminated in a report that includes a set of principles of job-driven training. Agencies across the government, including DOL, ED, HHS, DOD, and USDA, are using these principles to make their programs more aligned with one another and more responsive to the needs of jobseekers. In addition to taking steps to improve coordination, the Administration has recommended several targeted consolidations that would reduce overlap without adversely affecting vulnerable populations. And several of the 47 programs GAO identified have already been eliminated or consolidated. 

In each of the President’s first six Budgets, the Administration identified, on average, more than 150 cuts, consolidations, and savings averaging more than $23 billion each year. Many of these proposals have now been implemented, and the Budget built on this success by including 101 cuts, consolidations, and savings proposals projected to save over $14 billion in 2016. The President’s FY 2016 Budget shows that we can avoid the harmful spending cuts known as sequestration, and instead invest in economic growth, mobility, and national security, while still putting the Nation on a sustainable fiscal path. Overall the Budget achieves about $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction, primarily from reforms in health programs, the tax code, and immigration.

The Budget also supports the President’s plan to reorganize the Federal Government so that it does more for less, and is best positioned to assist businesses and entrepreneurs in the global economy.  Specifically, the President is renewing his request for the Congress to revive the reorganization authority given to nearly every President from Herbert Hoover to Ronald Reagan. This authority would allow the Administration to submit plans to consolidate and reorganize Executive Branch Departments and agencies for fast track consideration by the Congress, but only so long as the result would be to reduce the size of Government or cut costs, a new requirement for this type of authority.  The President’s FY 2016 Budget includes examples of cross-government consolidations intended as a blueprint for reorganizing and reforming the Government.  As the President first indicated in 2012, if he is given Presidential reorganization authority, he would propose to consolidate a number of agencies and programs into a new department focused on fostering economic growth and driving job creation.  This proposal would consolidate six primary business and trade agencies, as well as other related programs, integrating the Government’s core trade and competitiveness functions into one new department.  The President’s Budget also proposes consolidating food safety functions, as an essential step to reforming the Federal food safety system overall.  The Administration will continue to work with Congress and stakeholders on these proposals and to identify opportunities to make the Government more efficient and effective.

Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Government is not an easy endeavor.  It requires dedication and commitment throughout agencies, from the Secretary at headquarters to the employees on the front line.  It requires sustained support from both the Executive and Legislative Branches.  Our success to date shows that we can improve the way Government works and provide the American people with an efficient, effective, high-performing Government.  We look forward to continuing to work with Congress, GAO, and other stakeholders to identify opportunities to create a Government of the future that makes a significant and tangible difference in the economy and the lives of the American people. 

Beth Cobert is Deputy Director for Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Focusing on Implementation to Drive Continued Progress

A little over a year ago, the Administration committed to several ambitious improvements in Government services and better outcomes for the American public.  Building on successful data-driven efforts that have helped reduce veterans’ homelessness, increased renewable energy, and the speed up the approval of disaster loans for families in need, we established 15 new Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goals and every Federal Agency published a limited number of Agency Priority Goals (APGs).  Our framework of clear priorities and data-driven decision making enables Federal leadership to accelerate efforts to deliver Government services more efficiently and effectively and drive real positive change for the American public.

In the final year of the Administration it will be more important than ever for the senior leadership team to focus on implementation to lock in progress on Administration priority issues.  As we begin to establish this Administration’s final set of APGs for Fiscal Year 2016-2017, we have asked each agency to accelerate progress on those areas that will have the greatest impact.  In this week’s guidance to agencies, we have required agencies to identify a senior career leader, in addition to a goal leader, to support implementation throughout the goal period.  We will also be publishing the new priority goals at the start of Fiscal Year 2016, instead of waiting until the President’s 2017 budget is released in February. 

Over the course of my career, in sectors as diverse as mobile telecom, the leisure industry and financial services, I’ve seen how efforts to streamline and re-design processes and put new technologies to work can have genuine impact on improved service delivery and customer service – and the bottom line.  Since joining government for the first time a year and a half ago, it is clear that the private sector does not have the monopoly on using these approaches to drive better results.  The APG and CAP Goal efforts are a clear testament. In particular, in reviewing progress on our APGs and CAP Goals this quarter, there are several areas where streamlining processes and deploying new technology is delivering better services for the American people. 

For example:

• The Department of State’s Excellence in Consular Service Delivery Agency Priority Goal measures the time required to process passport applications for U.S. citizens and appointment wait times for nonimmigrant visa (NIV) applicants.  The Department of State uses a data-driven approach to implement process improvements and dynamically shift resources in order to improve customer service and processing speed while preserving the integrity of the passport and visa adjudication processes.  Throughout FY 2014, State exceeded the target of ensuring that 80 percent of NIV applicants were interviewed within three weeks of requesting an appointment.  In addition, State processed 99.9% of passport applications in a timely manner.

• The Social Security Administration set a goal to deliver a world-class customer experience by expanding the use of video technology to hold hearings. This technology provided the opportunity for claimants to have their cases heard in many of SSA’s 1200 field offices instead of only their 162 hearing offices, thus cutting down on claimant travel time and burden. Video hearing technology gave SSA the ability to balance workloads when shifting demographics and changing economic conditions created a large influx of cases in a particular hearing office. Before video hearings, SSA didn’t have a way to manage this change in workload. Now, with national video hearing centers (first piloted in Baltimore, MD), any office with a substantial backlog can redirect their hearings to reduce that backlog. SSA now conducts 28% of their hearings by video, over 170,000 more than last fiscal year. 

In the final year of the Administration it will be more important than ever for the senior leadership team to focus on implementation to lock in progress on priorities like those highlighted above. As we work with agencies on these Goals and others, we are consistently looking for places where there are promising, innovative approaches or proven tools that have the potential to be spread to other areas or regions to deliver maximum impact. 

Beth Cobert is the Deputy Director for Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

A National Strategy for Reducing the Federal Government’s Real Estate Footprint

In 2013, the Administration issued the Freeze the Footprint (FTF) policy to freeze the Federal Government’s real estate footprint and restrict the growth of excess or underutilized properties.  Freeze the Footprint was the first government-wide policy that established and required federal agencies to identify offsets (i.e., disposals) of existing property to support new property acquisitions, and that set a timeline for agencies to freeze their real property footprint. The policy was a success. Now federal agencies have frozen, reduced, or are on a path to freeze their baseline by the end of FY 2015.  Agencies achieved a 21.4 million square foot reduction in office and warehouse space between FY 2012 and FY 2014. And in FY 2014 alone, for all domestic owned building types, the government disposed of 7,350 buildings, 47 million square feet of space, and eliminated $17 million of annual operation and maintenance cost as a result of Freeze the Footprint.

Building on this success, today the Administration has issued the National Strategy for Real Property (National Strategy) and the Reduce the Footprint policy. With the establishment of the National Strategy and OMB’s new Reduce the Footprint (RTF) policy agencies will be required not only to continue to  freeze but also reduce their real property footprint over the next several years.  The RTF policy will supersede the current FTF requirements by requiring agencies to reduce, rather than freeze, their footprint beginning in FY 2016.

Through the National Strategy, OMB has established a clear strategic framework to guide agencies’ real property management, to increase efficient real property use, control costs, and reduce real property holdings.   The National Strategy outlines three key steps to improved real property management:

• freeze growth in the inventory,
• measure performance to identify opportunities for efficiency improvements through data driven decision-making, and ultimately,
• reduce the size of the inventory by prioritizing actions to consolidate, co-locate, and dispose of properties.

Over time, application of the National Strategy will improve the utilization of government owned buildings, lower the number of excess and underutilized properties, and improve the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the portfolio. Consolidating properties and collocating agengy office space is not only commonsense, but will provide more convenient access to the public and allow for upgraded facilities to provide more modern work environments for federal employees to conduct their business.  

 Complementing the National Strategy, the RTF policy requires agencies to:

1. Set annual square foot reduction targets for federal domestic buildings; and
2. Adopt space design standards to optimize federal domestic office space usage.

Under the RTF OMB has, for the first time, established government-wide policy to use property as efficiently as possible and to reduce agency portfolios though annual reduction targets.  The policy is an impetus for real property management transformation that will provide value to the taxpayer.

Issuance of the RTF builds upon ongoing success in other key real property program elements.  OMB has partnered with GSA and the Federal Real Property Council to implement new and enhanced analytical tools within the Federal Real Property Profile database that support data driven decision-making.  These new tools will provide detailed data on properties’ annual cost, location, size, and lease expiration, among other data elements, in a structured format that fully supports agency management’s ability to identify efficiency opportunities and to use data to prioritize and implement them. When fully implemented in the fourth quarter of FY2015, the system will provide agencies with greater management capability to seize the efficiency and cost opportunities that their portfolios present over the next five years. 

The National Strategy establishes a new strategic framework through which the government can manage its real property.  The framework and the RTF policy build upon and expand the successes the Administration has achieved to date.  While we are making progress in reducing space and disposing of unneeded assets using existing authorities, we will need the support of our partners in Congress to identify additional flexibilities and resources to further our efforts.  The President’s FY2016 Budget specifically addresses these issue by requesting funding for GSA’s consolidation program through appropriation of $200 million of Federal Building Fund monies to support smart investments in Federal facilities. The budget also re-proposes the Civilian Property Realignment Act, which would create an independent board of private and public sector real estate experts to analyze the real estate portfolio government-wide and recommend to Congress which properties should be disposed, consolidated, co-located or reconfigured.

We look forward to working collaboratively with all stakeholders to achieve a more efficient and effective delivery of government services through improved management and utilization of real property.

David Mader is the Federal Controller at the White House Office of Management and Budget.