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Improving Planning and Priority Setting
Since passage of the Government Performance and Results Act in 1993 and
particularly over the past several years, EPA managers and staff have
focused on defining our environmental and human health protection goals
and better managing our work to achieve those results. Today, as a part
of our effort to “manage for results,” we set long-term strategic
goals and objectives; we establish annual goals that will help us reach
those longer-range goals; and we develop measures to track our annual
performance. EPA was one of the first federal agencies to restructure
our budget according to the goals we established in our Strategic Plan.
We have found that integrating our planning and budgeting improves our
ability to assess EPA’s program and financial performance and helps
us adjust program strategies and make sound budget decisions.
We continue to look for ways to improve our planning and priority-setting–both in terms of our annual planning and budgeting and our longer-range strategic planning. One area of particular focus involves our collaboration with our state and tribal partners. Because EPA, state agencies, and tribal governments each play a part in protecting our nation’s environment and health, we are working together to strengthen our joint planning and priority-setting, identify innovative approaches, and implement our strategies effectively to achieve results.
Through a series of workgroups, EPA and the
Environmental Council of the States
(ECOS),
a national organization representing state environmental commissioners,
have been working together to focus on the most important environmental
issues and concerns and better align state and EPA planning processes
to encourage and strengthen joint state, regional, and national planning
efforts. (For more information on the history and leadership of the ECOS-EPA
workgroup effort, go to EPA-ECOS
Alignment/Performance Partnership Agreement Workgroup.
Recent Improvements
Spurred by EPA’s internal efforts to improve the way it manages for results (go to Managing for Improved Results and by recommendations of the ECOS-EPA Alignment and Performance Partnership Agreement Workgroups, in 2004 EPA and states implemented several enhancements to our planning processes.
- EPA developed its first set of Regional Plans, which explain how regional offices will make progress toward the Agency’s strategic goals over the next 3 to 5 years. Regional Plans are intended to highlight unique regional conditions and problems, reflect state and tribal priorities and concerns, and discuss strategies and tools for achieving results.
- EPA adopted a new approach to developing national guidance for its air, water, land, toxics, and compliance and enforcement programs. The Agency’s National Program Manager Guidance sets out national priorities and the strategies that regional offices will be expected to carry out over 3 years to meet program goals. In preparing guidance for FY 2005 - 2007, EPA program managers had access to information on regional and state concerns, priorities, and approaches as reflected in the Regional Plans. For the first time, the Agency issued draft and final guidance documents at one time for all national programs. EPA posted the guidance on its website to make it more accessible for review and to allow EPA, states, and tribes to look across programs and plan accordingly.
- EPA designed its FY 2005 and 2006 annual planning and budgeting processes to expand opportunities for regions, states, and tribes to participate early; state and tribal representatives attended the Agency’s FY 2005 Performance and Accountability Meeting and FY 2006 Planning Meeting (for the first time in its entirety).
- Each year, EPA regional offices make regional performance commitments for the upcoming fiscal year that will be essential for achieving the Agency’s strategic goals. To streamline this annual commitment process, EPA developed a new automated database to help regions and national program offices negotiate regional performance commitments. The new Annual Commitment System allows regional managers to consider their commitments and resource allocation across all five programs at once and has enabled the Agency to eliminated its old, paper-intensive Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) process. Also, the system allowed states and tribes for the first time to review and comment on draft commitments, offering an unprecedented level of transparency and collaboration, and increasing opportunities to align national, regional, state, and tribal priorities.
- Many EPA regional offices and states develop Performance Partnership Agreements (PPAs) and grant work plans that reflect the results of joint planning and priority setting. To develop PPAs, EPA and states discuss environmental conditions and program needs, agree on goals and priorities, devise strategies for addressing priority needs, determine their roles and responsibilities, and decide how they will measure progress. States can choose to receive some or all of their federal environmental program grant funds in a combined Performance Partnership Grant (PPG), which allows them to direct resources where they are most needed and try innovative or cross-cutting approaches. To improve PPAs, EPA and ECOS worked together to identify essential elements of agreements, promote state-EPA strategic thinking, and make PPAs more definitive agreements.
- States and EPA conducted Planning
Pilot Projectssupported
by a cooperative agreement between EPA and ECOS. The projects were designed
to build states’ planning capabilities, stimulate state-regional
joint planning, and support improvements to state/EPA agreements. During
FY 2004, 8 projects were conducted in 22 states across 6 regions.
Evaluating Our Progress
EPA conducted an internal evaluation to assess the effectiveness of planning improvements within the Agency (Internal EPA Evaluation Results (PDF Format, 170KB)) . In addition, the ECOS-EPA Alignment and Performance Partnership Agreement Workgroup conducted an evaluation of the extent and success of state EPA joint planning and priority-setting efforts (ECOS-EPA Workgroup Evaluation Results (PDF Format, 273KB)) . The evaluation found that EPA and state managers generally supported recent reforms to the planning process. Respondents cited specific improvements and suggested ideas to further streamline and strengthen joint planning.
Next Steps
As was originally intended, the ECOS-EPA Alignment and PPA Workgroup ended its tenure in December, 2004. However, EPA and ECOS continue working together through the newly organized ECOS-EPA Performance Partnership Workgroup, formed under the auspices of ECOS Planning Committee, to explore evaluation recommendations and implement further improvements. EPA will be amending its National Program Guidance and Regional Plans as needed. In addition, the Agency is expanding the annual commitment system’s capabilities.
Key Links for More Information
ECOS-EPA Workgroup
|
- EPA-ECOS Alignment/Performance Partnership Agreement Workgroup
- Agenda from the November 30-December 1, 2004 ECOS-EPA Alignment and PPA Workgroup meeting (MSWord, 50KB)
- Meeting Summary from the November 30-December 1, 2004 ECOS-EPA Alignment and PPA Workgroup meeting (PDF, 113KB)
- Overview of Alignment and Performance Partnership Process Improvements (PDF Format, 1440KB), a paper prepared by the EPA-ECOS ALignment and PPA Workgroup, provides a fuller discussion of planning improvements.
- Internal EPA Evaluation on Planning Improvements: Regional Plans, National Program Guidance, and Annual Commitment Process and System (PDF Format, 170KB)
- ECOS-EPA Alignment-PPA Workgroup Evaluation Results (PDF Format, 217KB)
EPA Planning
|
- 2005 Planning and Budgeting
Schedule (MSPowerpoint, 51KB)
and
EPA Planning and Budgeting Process (MSPowerpoint, 44KB) illustrate EPA’s FY 2005 planning and budgeting process in two graphic representations - FY 2005-2007 National Program Manager (NPM) Guidance
- 2003-2008 EPA Strategic Plan
- FY 2004 EPA Annual Report
Background
- Government Performance and Results Act
- Managing
for Improved Results
,
final report of the EPA Managing for Improved Results Steering Group
report