Financial management continues to be an area of concern for
the Office of Management and Budget, which rated 18 of 26
agencies on this quarter’s management agenda scorecard in
the red for financial performance, one of six categories
agencies are rated on according to how they measure up to
the administration’s goals. Those scores remained unchanged
since the release of the last scorecard in December.
The red scores echo a recent PMA assessment from the
Government Accountability Office – GAO-05-574-T – stating
that while agencies have made progress meeting accelerated
financial statement reporting deadlines, improvement lags
on financial management reforms, especially at the
Department of Defense, “which must overhaul its financial
management and business operations.”
OMB sounded a note of progress in releasing the scorecard,
calling attention to a dozen progress scores and four
status improvements, including the achievement of a green
score for the Department of Interior and a yellow for the A
rmy Corps of Engineers for their competitive sourcing
efforts. However, 19 progress scores dropped, along with
two status scores this quarter.
The Department of Education moved to the highest green
status after its Federal Student Aid program was removed
from the GAO’s most recent “high-risk” list.
Also, DoD’s military housing program scored green for
demonstrating “an ability to privatize or eliminate all
inadequate military family housing by fiscal 2007,” said
OMB, adding that, “to date, about half of the 185,000
units targeted for improvement have been privatized.”
OMB said the program has addressed management challenges,
clarified goals, developed detailed action plans, and
that its leadership has become more accountable for
meeting goals and milestones.
Leading the rankings are the Departments of State and
Labor with four green status scores and five green
progress scores, followed by the Department of Energy
with four green status scores and four green progress
scores. The scorecard is available at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/agenda/scorecard.html
