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Giving Hope and Support to America's Children
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GPRA AT THE OFFICE OF CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENTU.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Child Support Enforcement February, 1996 This report was prepared under contract No. ACF-950213 by The Center for the Support of Children, Washington D.C. TABLE OF CONTENTS GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE MEASURES
INTRODUCTION In 1993, Congress passed a law intended to have a profound effect on the way that agencies of the Federal government conduct business. The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) is an attempt by Congress and the Clinton Administration to focus attention on the performance of Federal programs, to measure the results of those programs, and to look at the outcomes achieved by those programs. The legislation mandated that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) select pilot projects in a number of Federal agencies before the Act could be fully implemented throughout the Federal government in 1997. These pilots would begin work on strategic planning and performance measurement. The success of their efforts would then be evaluated before further implementation of GPRA by the rest of the Federal government. In the Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) was selected as one GPRA pilot project. This project is one of the few GPRA pilots that involves a program in which the Federal government and the States work together in a partnership. Therefore, the effort to develop a strategic plan and performance measures for OCSE has been quite different from that of a strictly Federal program. For the OCSE project to be successful, it is essential that the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement work with its State partners in developing both the strategic plan and the performance measures on which the success of the OCSE program is to be judged. This report examines the history of the implementation of GPRA at OCSE from the beginning of the strategic planning effort in April, 1994 through several phases in the development of performance measures. It ends with the adoption, in February 1996, of a final draft set of performance measures which will be submitted to the IV-D directors for the States' consideration in the Spring of 1996. The history is intended to provide a useful guide to other government agencies, particularly those involving Federal/State partnerships, as they begin the tasks of implementing GPRA and developing strategic plans and performance measures. By detailing the successes and failures of one pilot project, and sharing the lessons learned, this history attempts to make GPRA implementation easier for others. As the documentation of a GPRA pilot project involving a Federal/State partnership, this report will also help States and local governments as they attempt strategic planning and performance measurement. First, the report gives a brief history of GPRA and discusses the contents of the legislation. It also looks at the reasons that OCSE applied to be a pilot project and why it was chosen. Second, this report talks about the requirements of GPRA pilot projects and details in more depth the history of the strategic planning effort at OCSE as well as the development of performance measures and performance plans. The report also touches on the other OCSE efforts that have become part of the GPRA project, including the state pilot projects. Finally, the report looks at the future direction of OCSE and summarizes the lessons learned by the agency during the first phases of the GPRA implementation effort. GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT OF 1993 The Background of GPRA On October 3, 1990, Sen. William V. Roth introduced the "Federal Program Performance Standards and Goals Act of 1990". The bill was referred that day to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. [1] The following January, Sen. Roth reintroduced the bill in a slightly revised form as S.20 and, again, it was referred to the Committee, which held hearings on the bill in May 1991 and, again, one year later. [2] The Committee considered S. 20 on August 5, 1992 and adopted an amendment retitling the bill the "Government Performance and Results Act of 1992." The amendment included, among other changes, the mandate that GPRA be implemented in a set of pilot projects before full implementation of the law throughout the government. The following January, S.20 was reintroduced and again referred to Committee and more hearings were held. The Committee voted to report the bill favorably on March 27, 1993.[3] In the House of Representatives, H.R.826 was introduced by Reps. Conyers, Clinger, and McDade on February 4, 1993. There was strong administration support from the OMB and the National Performance Review. The bill was also supported by the General Accounting Office (GAO) which, since 1973, had produced over 70 reports on performance measures. [4] Legislation passed the House on May 25 and the Senate on June 23. President Clinton signed GPRA on August 3, 1993, calling it "an important first step in the efforts to reform the way the federal government operates and relates to the American people." [5] The Contents of the Act The purpose of GPRA is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Federal programs by establishing a system to set goals for program performance and to measure program results. GPRA forces agencies to focus on program results, service quality, and customer satisfaction by requiring strategic planning and performance measurement. Under the Act, agencies must set program goals and then publicly report on their progress toward achieving those goals. The purposes of the GPRA, as stated in the legislation, are to: - improve the confidence of the American people in the capability of the Federal Government by systematically holding Federal agencies accountable for achieving program results; - initiate program performance reform with a series of pilot projects in setting program goals, measuring program performance against these goals, and reporting publicly on their progress; - improve Federal program effectiveness and public accountability by promoting a new focus on results, service quality, and public satisfaction; - help Federal managers improve service delivery by requiring that they plan for meeting program objectives and by providing them with information about program results and service quality; - improve congressional decisionmaking by providing more objective information on achieving statutory objectives, and on the relative effectiveness and efficiency of Federal programs and spending; and - improve internal management of the Federal Government. Implications for Federal Agencies in the Future By September 30, 1997, all executive agencies will be required to submit to OMB and to the Congress a five-year strategic plan for their programs. These strategic plans, which will then be submitted every three years, are to include a mission statement covering major functions and operations of the agency and general goals and objectives of the agency, as well as the approach and necessary resources to be used in achieving those goals and objectives. Agencies must also identify any "key external factors" that might have a significant affect on the agency's ability to achieve the general goals and objectives. In addition, each agency must describe any program evaluations used in establishing or revising the goals and objectives (including plans for future evaluations). Beginning October 1, 1997, each Federal agency will also be required to prepare an annual performance plan. The first plan will be for Fiscal Year 1999. As with the pilot projects, these plans will cover each program activity in the agency's budget and establish performance goals. These goals will then define the performance level to be achieved by a program activity. The goals, whenever possible, are to be expressed in an objective, quantifiable, and measurable form. Performance indicators will be used to measure the relevant outputs, outcomes, and/or service levels for each program activity. The performance plans will also describe the operational processes and resources needed to meet the performance goals and will establish a procedure for comparing actual program results with the performance goals. Beginning March 31, 2000, and every year thereafter, agencies will be required to publish annual program performance reports. (This report will be due six months after the end of the fiscal year on which it is based.) The reports will compare the performance indicators that were established in the performance plan and the actual program performance achieved with the performance goals in that year's plan. These reports also discuss the agency's success in achieving the performance goals and they will describe and explain those cases in which performance goals have not been met. GPRA Pilot Projects GPRA has provisions for pilot testing three different key concepts before implementing the Act throughout the government in 1997: annual performance plans and reports, managerial flexibility, and performance budgeting. OMB is charged with assessing the costs, benefits, and usefulness of each concept. The OCSE's pilot project is testing the first concept -- that is, it is developing annual performance plans and performance reports. GPRA requires the testing of performance plan and report preparation over a three year period by at least 10 agencies. However, OMB decided that there should also be a second group of pilot projects of this type that would run for two years. These projects would be geared specifically toward multi-agency functions or joint Federal/State/local activities. This is the category of pilot project that applies to the OCSE efforts. Pilot agencies are required to write performance plans which describe annual performance goals and objectives, summarize the resources to be used, and list the indicators to be used to measure performance. Annual performance reports by the pilot agencies then describe how well each agency did in meeting the goals and objectives outlined in the performance plan. OMB will then assess the performance measurement and goal-setting concepts of GPRA during the implementation of these pilot projects and it will identify any significant difficulties experienced by agencies. CHOOSING GPRA PILOTS Why OCSE Applied The OCSE was, in many ways, well-suited to becoming a pilot. OCSE began with the enactment of title IV-D of the Social Security Act, in 1975, for the purpose of "establishing and enforcing the support obligations owed by noncustodial parents to their children and the spouse or former spouse with whom the children may be living." [6] The program is federally funded, but administered by States and local governments and, as such, is a true Federal/State partnership. The legislation authorized the States' use of federal matching funds for enforcing support obligations owed by noncustodial parents, locating absent parents, establishing paternity, and obtaining child and spousal support. The States were given responsibility for administering the child support enforcement program while the federal government's role was to fund, monitor, and evaluate the State programs and provide technical assistance to the States. At the time of its pilot application, OCSE's Eighteenth Annual Report to Congress, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1993, the child support enforcement program established paternity for over half a million children and collected nearly $9 billion in child support. [7] In FY 1993, the IV-D child support enforcement caseload consisted of more than 17 million cases.[8] Fiscal year 1995 data shows that the caseload has expanded to over 20 million and collections have increased to $10.753 billion. The growth trend has continued since the year the program began. There were several factors surrounding the timing of the passage of GPRA that made OCSE ideally suited to participate as a pilot project. OCSE had been part of a larger effort to develop strategic plans in the past, but never before had there been an attempt to include the States in the development of such a plan. By August 1993, when GPRA passed, there were already ongoing attempts at performance measurement and focusing on results within the agency and the States. If OCSE became a GPRA pilot, there would be a perfect opportunity to develop those efforts further. There had also been recent attempts by OCSE to work with its State partners in the Measuring Excellence Through Statistics (METS) initiative, as described in more detail below. OCSE welcomed GPRA as an opportunity to build on these partnership efforts. In addition, given that all agencies would have to follow the requirements of GPRA eventually, it made sense to those at OCSE to be a pilot project and, thus, get a head start on implementing a law that would affect the agency in the future. By participating as a pilot agency, OCSE could take advantage of the additional help that would be available to the pilots in the form of technical assistance. There might also be added attention focused on OCSE as a pilot that could generate some good publicity for the agency. Further, being a pilot agency gave OCSE the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of federal change and have input into that change. OCSE also had an interest in the managerial waivers that might be made available to GPRA pilots in the "second wave" of piloting the key concepts in the legislation. Additionally, there was already a change occurring in the audit function at OCSE. There was widespread agreement that the focus needed to change from looking at process to looking at results. This change in focus had been evolving over time. This shift fit neatly into the GPRA framework. Finally, there was an assumption in the agency that there would be welfare reform in the coming months. The knowledge that legislation would be proposed and enacted which might change the welfare system generally and the child support enforcement program specifically in fundamental ways gave an added immediacy to the task of developing performance measures. The proposed legislation included a focus on measuring the results of the child support enforcement program. Previous OCSE Reform Efforts There had been several efforts to begin strategic planning, performance measurement, and audit reform at OCSE. Assistant Secretary Mary Jo Bane had created a Performance Measurement Project Team at ACF in August 1993. This Team had been asked "to explore and make recommendations for ways in which ACF could respond to the need to measure the results of its programs and initiatives, and to incorporate those measures in strategic planning and budgeting activities."[9] Originally, the team was created as part of a "quick start" toward the implementation of total quality management principles. However, there were a number of concurrent events which influenced the team and made its task even more important and immediate, including "the issuance of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review (NPR), the passage of the GPRA and President Clinton's signing of Executive Orders designed to put the government on a more results-oriented, customer-focused footing."[10] Because of the juxtaposition in timing, the Performance Measurement Project Team was able to play a part in recommending and brokering the application of the Child Support Enforcement Program to participate as one of OMB's GPRA implementation pilots. As noted above, another project that was an important precursor to the GPRA pilot was the METS initiative. This was an attempt by OCSE and the States to improve the quality of the States' data collection efforts. The effort involved numerous meetings between OCSE and State child support enforcement directors and the solicitation of comments and feedback from the States. From February, 1992 through late 1993, the METS effort included attempts to revise federal reporting forms and the instructions that States are required to use to report program data. Data definitions and reporting procedures were also to be revised. The audit function at OCSE was undergoing a gradual and fundamental change at the same time. The States, the American Public Welfare Association (APWA), the National Governors' Association (NGA) and OCSE worked together to develop ideas about how to focus the federal audit process on outcomes rather than on process. Preliminary attempts were also made to think about results-oriented performance measures. The Federal statute mandated periodic comprehensive Federal audits of State programs to ensure substantial compliance with all Federal requirements. If deficiencies identified in an audit were not corrected, States faced a mandatory fiscal penalty of between one and five percent of the Federal share of the State's AFDC program funding. The current detail-oriented and process-oriented audit has been viewed by many as being time-consuming and labor intensive for both Federal auditors and the States. One result is that audit findings do not measure current State performance or current program requirements. States contend that the audit system focuses too much on administrative procedures and processes rather than performance outcomes and results. However, it is widely agreed that efforts to pass the audit have been a significant driving force behind the States' improved performance. While two-thirds of the States fail the initial audit, three-fourths of these same States come into compliance after a corrective-action period, therefore avoiding the financial penalty. There have been several attempts to change the audit process so that it focuses more on outcomes. The current proposal in the welfare reform legislation simplifies the Federal audit requirements. The States would be required to conduct self-reviews to assess whether or not all required services are being provided. Federal auditors would assess States' data used to determine performance outcomes to assess whether it is valid and reliable and conduct periodic financial and other audits as the Secretary deems necessary. If State self-reviews indicate that services are not being provided, OCSE would evaluate the State's program, ascertain the causes for the problems, and help States correct the problems. The existence of all of the above efforts -- strategic planning, performance measurement, the METS initiative, and audit reform -- made OCSE interested in and well-prepared to be a part of the GPRA pilot effort. The work previously done in all of these areas was essential to the success that OCSE would have with the GPRA work it would undertake. Why OCSE Was Chosen The Office of Management and Budget used several criteria for selecting initial pilot projects to implement the GPRA. The key factor OMB would consider, according to their memo requesting nominations for pilot projects from the agencies, was whether an agency was currently collecting and reporting on performance. For an agency to be selected by OMB, it also had to have some capability to determine or estimate the costs and benefits of the planning and reporting process. Furthermore, although OMB did not require an agency to have a current strategic plan, the agency should have long term goals and objectives related to its proposed pilot. As mentioned above, the OCSE had already begun efforts toward performance measurement, although it did not yet have a strategic plan. The OCSE was also experienced at collecting and analyzing data, and although there were questions about the reliability of the data collected, the OCSE was addressing these reliability issues through the METS initiative. In addition, audit reform was beginning and the States were in the process of developing automated systems which would make gathering of necessary data easier. These factors -- the ability to quantify performance results, the Federal/State partnership, and the data collection capacity -- all added to OCSE's suitability to be chosen as a GPRA pilot agency. REQUIREMENTS OF GPRA PILOTS OMB specified a number of items that the agencies were required to provide as they applied to be GPRA pilot projects. Included in these were: 1. The agency component(s), organization(s), or activities that would form the pilot project, 2. The approximate amount of FY 1994 spending and the number of FTEs that would be covered by the pilot, 3. Whether the agency currently has, or will have (not later than FY 1996) a strategic plan covering the pilot project function or operation. (The Act requires that pilot agencies have a strategic plan for at least one year of the three-year pilot project period.) 4. An outline of the type or nature of the performance goals that would be included in the performance plan(s) 5. A summary of the general nature and extent of any current measurement of program performance for the function or operation. 6. An indication whether, at the end of the pilot project period, the agency could estimate the costs and benefits of measuring performance and preparing the annual performance plans and program performance reports.[11] Furthermore, pilots needed to be able to produce an annual performance plan setting measurable performance goals, and an annual report comparing actual performance to the target goals. A copy of the OCSE pilot project nomination, the strategic plan and the proposed performance indicators, and annual performance plans are included in the Appendix to this report. DEVELOPING THE STRATEGIC PLAN In October, 1993, Leon Panetta, then the OMB director, sent a memo to the Department of Health and Human Services soliciting nominations for GPRA pilot projects. These nominations were due to the OMB by November 2, 1993. In January, 1994 Secretary Shalala received a letter from Panetta designating the HHS as a pilot project for performance measurement under the GPRA. Two projects were designated: a three year project in the Social Security Administration and the two year project in the Administration for Children and Families' Child Support Enforcement Program. Those who were working on the pilot project at OCSE knew that any project would have to include their State "partners," even though the federal legislation would not directly affect the States. Focusing the GPRA effort only at the OCSE would make little sense because it is the States that truly implement child support enforcement and provide almost all of the direct services to the public. Therefore, it was essential to get the States to join in the effort if it was to be successful. Only by working with the States could the OCSE have an impact on the program's performance results. In late March, 1994, Judge David Gray Ross, the Deputy Director of the OCSE, sent a "Dear Colleague" letter to the State IV-D directors. In this letter, he announced that OCSE was designated a GPRA pilot and he asked for their help on the performance plans required by the GPRA as well as their input into the development of performance indicators. Efforts to start designing a strategic planning document for the agency began at the end of April, 1994, when a group of participants from OCSE's central office met with Mike English and Hap Hadd, of the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget. Regional Office program managers were connected to this meeting via conference call. The group met and developed a first draft of a Strategic Plan. This first draft was distributed and discussed with State IV-D directors at their annual meeting in Virginia Beach, Virginia in early May. The first draft of the Plan was intended by the central staff to provide a starting point for later discussions with the States. They felt they needed to start with something written that the States could then react to, rather than starting the process with nothing. In fact, this first draft included many key elements that would remain in it throughout the planning process and be included in the final version that was adopted many months later. However, there were also important changes made to the Plan as well as certain shifts in emphasis that were crucial to the Plan's ultimate acceptance by all partners. The May version of the Strategic Plan began with an Introduction that included some of the assumptions on which the Plan was based, a Vision Statement for OCSE, a Mission Statement, a list of Critical Success Factors, and five Goals along with Objectives for each Goal. It also included the beginnings of some performance indicators. Comments the OCSE staff received at the IV-D directors' annual meeting made it clear that the strategic planning effort should go no further without including State partners in the process. Judge Ross, therefore, sent a letter on May 20 to the IV-D directors to ask for their help in developing a Strategic Plan for the national program, solicit from them proposals for two-year GPRA pilot projects in their States, and ask the directors to circulate the draft Strategic Plan in their States and get feedback from other interested parties. At the end of May, further work was done on the Strategic Plan by OCSE staff and regional program managers (again, by phone) leading to a June 1st version of the document that was to be distributed at the Eastern Regional Interstate Child Support Association (ERICSA) Annual Conference in New Orleans. At that conference, open houses were held to obtain input into the Plan. These were attended by a cross section of State and local IV-D personnel, Federal staff, and advocacy group representatives. Again, the major comment received was that no further action should occur without State involvement. The June version of the Plan was not very different than the one written at the end of May. It was still a Plan that had been developed chiefly by the OCSE central office staff with input from the regional managers, but it was clearly seeking input from State partners. A section was added about the "Overall Approach" that would be used to develop the Plan, acknowledging that "all partners involved in administering the Program need to be involved in developing and evolving the initial goals and objectives...." [12] During the month of June, a Core Team was established to continue to refine and complete the work on the draft Strategic Plan. The National Council of Child Support Enforcement Administrators sent two representative IV-D directors to serve on this Core Team. The OCSE regional program managers also named two people to the Core Team, one from Region X (Seattle) and one from Region II (New York). The OCSE central office had five representatives to the Core Team.Also, during June, the draft Strategic Plan was discussed throughout the 10 HHS regions during various conference calls in an effort to solicit comments and feedback. In July, the IV-D directors' representatives sent a letter to all of the IV-D directors with a first draft of the Strategic Plan asking for their comments. Also during July, the monthly OCSE staff meeting was held as a GPRA training session with Mike English and Hap Hadd. The 10 HHS regional program managers were connected to this training session in Washington D.C. by phone. The early involvement of the regional offices and their ongoing input to the national Stategic Plan effort were crucial to its success. The regions continued to discuss the plan with their States during this month. For example, in Region X the Plan was discussed at the State Conference on July 12. The plan was also presented and discussed at the Delaware Parent Locator Regional Conference, July 21. The APWA Quarterly meeting in Washington and the Region III Executive Board Meeting of the Domestic Relations Association of Pennsylvania offered further opportunities to discuss the emerging plan and to get feedback. Focus groups were also held in July in the Central Office to discuss and get input into the plan. On July 26, the Core Team met in Washington to revise the Strategic Plan based on all of the comments that had been received. This meeting was held just before the OCSE 4th National Training Workshop, where even more focus groups were held to solicit comments for a new draft. These meetings led to an August 10th draft of the plan. By the August 10th draft, there were some notable changes in the Strategic Plan. The Introduction to the Plan clearly stated that this was to be a five year plan for the Child Support Program. It acknowledged that welfare reform legislation might change the program. It also acknowledged and incorporated the broader ACF vision into the Plan because people felt that it was important that the OCSE Plan explicitly fit with the policy direction being set for ACF as a whole. The change to a broader approach for the child support program was happening on many fronts at this time. The child support program had been evolving from its initial phases, in which it was seen primarily as a law enforcement program working to collect money from noncustodial parents (mostly fathers) either to reimburse the States for AFDC grants or on behalf of mothers and children. It was now becoming a program that sought primarily to help children. The new charge was "putting children first." This change in emphasis and in focus was happening concurrently in the concerns of Congress, the research about families, the greater visibility of fathers' rights groups, and as a result of Judge Ross' influence on the agency. In a key development, the August draft of the Plan began to address the broader change in focus. The Plan mentioned the importance of both parents being involved and important to the children and it stressed the need to treat both parents fairly. This August version of the draft addressed the issue of the "customer" of the child support program. It stated that children are the primary customers of the program, while their parents are secondary customers. It further stated that program partners must work together to achieve program results. In the Goals and Objectives for this version of the Plan, there was an added concern about medical insurance coverage. Also, the paternity establishment goal became the first goal rather than the third goal. Throughout August, additional focus groups were held in Washington D.C., including outreach meetings with advocacy groups and other stakeholders. At the National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) meeting at the end of August, there were more focus groups and discussions. During September, the Plan was distributed and discussed at a meeting of Program Managers in College Park, Maryland and at the Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Annual Conference (WICSEC) in Seattle, Washington. During the fall, it was also distributed to various custodial and noncustodial parent advocacy groups, who were given the opportunity to comment on the contents. The next version of the plan, dated December 5, 1994, incorporated many of the comments that had been received throughout the fall. It was discussed with IV-D directors during the American Public Welfare Association (APWA) winter meeting in San Francisco, bringing even more States into the process. About 25 State IV-D directors met face-to-face, as well as via telephone and HCFA video facilities, in the regional offices. During the discussion of the Plan, many of the same themes and criticisms were stated that had been heard before. Some States still didn't feel ownership of the Plan because, even though they had representatives on the Core Team, they hadn't been "at the table" as the Plan was developed. This December version, which was quite close to the final Plan, mentioned that the States were involved in creating the Plan. It discussed the need for coordination among program partners to avoid a fragmented service delivery system. It acknowledged the importance of fathers, mothers, and other caretakers in a child's upbringing. It mentioned a commitment to research and demonstration projects. This version of the Plan included possible performance indicators and approaches to the measures, as well. In order to get final consensus on the Strategic Plan, it became clear to the OCSE staff that the indicators or performance measures needed to be separated from the Plan. Consensus on and acceptance of the Strategic Plan by the partners would be the first step and, then, the development of the performance measures would be a second and separate step in the implementation of GPRA. Consensus was achieved on the final version of the Strategic Plan during a national videoconference of State IV-D and Federal OCSE leaders on February 28, 1995 originating from Washington D. C. More than 20 state CSE programs were represented and over 100 people participated in the videoconference. Mike English facilitated the videoconference, which was aimed at bringing closure on the issues in the Plan. In accepting the national Strategic Plan as a working blueprint for the child support enforcement program over the next five years, all participating IV-D partners signalled their agreement on the goals and objectives for the program.[13] For those who participated in the videoconference, agreement on the Strategic Plan felt like a truly historic moment. The accomplishment of consensus drew spontaneous applause from the group of 25 attending the videoconference in Washington. Cecelia Burke, president of the National Council of Child Support Enforcement Administrators, acknowledged the event as a milestone in Federal-State relations in the child support enforcement program, saying, "For the first time ever, we have a Strategic Plan for the whole program. I feel we are moving into a new realm with OCSE, when you consider the magnitude of what we have just accomplished here."[14] DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE MEASURES After developing the goals and objectives for the Strategic Plan, the next step was to develop performance measures which would be used to measure the program's success in achieving the goals and objectives. A representative group chose to work on the development of the performance measures. The Performance Measure Workgroup was made up of some members of the Core Team, Federal and State staff, and some additional volunteers. It was a very representative group, including members from twenty States, three local jurisdictions, five regional offices and several different central office functions. The Workgroup held an organizational meeting in February, 1994 just prior to the videoconference at which the Strategic Plan was accepted. The Workgroup planned its first working meeting to be held in Alexandria, Virginia on March 16 and 17, 1994. At the March meeting, the Performance Measures Workgroup spent two days together in an effort to develop performance measures which would flow logically from the goals and objectives stated in the Strategic Plan. These sessions, facilitated by Mike English and Hap Hadd, led to an initial set of performance measures. The group recognized that more work would be needed to refine these measures (such as work on definitions, data gathering requirements, and so on), but it had achieved a first draft of a document which included some important performance measures and definitions. The first draft of the Performance Measures included indicators for each objective as well as equations for measuring those indicators. For example, Goal I of the Strategic Plan is "All Children Have Parentage Established." The Objective is "To Increase Establishment of Paternities, Particularly Thoses Established within One Year of Birth." During the March meeting, five paternity indicators (and accompanying equations) were proposed. These ranged from counting at paternity acknowledgements in the IV-D caseload to measuring the total percentage of live births in a State "with paternity resolved."[15] Following the March meeting, the measures that had been developed were circulated in a document to members of the Workgroup as well as to all of the State IV-D directors for their review and comments. Regional phone calls were then held in which the Program Managers led discussions about the measures with the participating States and Federal staff in order to elicit their comments, questions, and criticisms. The Performance Measures Workgroup reconvened in Austin, Texas on May 6th, prior to the annual conference of the National Council of State Child Support Enforcement Administrators. Assistant Secretary Mary Jo Bane participated in the discussions. At that meeting, feedback from the regional telephone calls was discussed and recommendations were made about how to adjust those measures that had not been acceptable to many people on the calls. For example, among the chief areas of concern were that many of the paternity measures focused on populations "outside the control of the IV-D agencies." The agencies did not want to be held accountable for things that they felt they could not control. For example, many States did not want to be measured on out of wedlock births. Others did not want to include Native American cases because of their lack of jurisdiction over the tribes. Others argued in favor of keeping these "universal measures" because they focus on the outcomes that the program is trying to affect. The Performance Measures Workgroup then presented its results to the full meeting of the State IV-D directors on Monday, May 8, recommending that certain measures on which there appeared to be consensus be agreed to by the whole group. More work would be done on the other measures (on which consensus had not been reached) in another attempt to develop measures that would satisfy most partners. The Workgroup agreed to reconvene following the OCSE Training Conference to be held in Washington D.C. in July. At the July 13 and 14 meetings, again led by Mike English and Hap Hadd, the remaining measures were decided upon and some initial attempts were made at defining some of the terms of the measures. Another outcome of this meeting was that the OCSE central office staff agreed to try to gather some of the data for the measures to test the feasibility of using those measures. The notes on and results of the July meetings were distributed to all Workgroup members during August. All of the proposed measures were presented at the NCSEA Annual Meeting in Kansas City that same month. In addition, the measures were presented and discussed at several round tables at the September conference that OCSE sponsored, entitled "Making Welfare Reform Work." Several Workgroup members were present for these discussions, which served as a vehicle to allow other interested people to hear about and comment on the proposed measures. Finally, all of the measures (including those that had been accepted in July) were distributed again to all State IV-D directors during September. Conference calls were arranged by OCSE central and regional staff to gather more comments and feedback about the measures in another effort to gain consensus. Summary notes of these conference calls were distributed to all participants and to the members of the Performance Measures Workgroup. The group reconvened in February in order to produce a final set of performance measures which they would recommend for adoption to all of the states in April. At this meeting, they decided to adopt three of the five paternity measures, leaving the remaining two measures as optional and recommending that they be pilot-tested by several States. The two indicators for Goal II were adopted. In Goal III, two measures on collection were deleted and the effort to "age arrears" was dropped. It was recommended that a sampling technique be developed to examine cases for whether or not they were "appropriate and up-to-date." As of this writing, the Performance Measures Workgroup plans to make their recommendations to all State IV-D directors in early May at the next annual IV-D directors' meeting and looks forward to having some States gather pilot data on the measures in the next few months. PERFORMANCE PLANNING As a GPRA pilot, the OCSE was required to conduct performance planning for FY 1995 and FY 1996 even before a Strategic Plan and performance measures were finalized. A basic performance plan was developed for FY 1995 focusing on two outcome measures that were tied to objectives in the draft Strategic Plan -- the total number of paternities established and the total child support dollars collected. The same two outcome measures were used for the FY 1996 plan. The Performance Plans for FY 1995 and FY 1996 are included in the Appendix to this report. Mirroring the process of developing and implementing performance measures at the national level, the State GPRA demonstrations are putting performance measures in place for their own goals and objectives. More than half of the States now have signed performance agreements with OCSE, just as Judge Ross has signed a performance agreement with the Assistant Secretary. OTHER GPRA ACTIVITIES GPRA at OCSE has meant much more than just the drafting of a Strategic Plan and the setting of organizational goals and objectives. Rather, all activities of the organization have been viewed in a new light following the GPRA and, in a sense, "GRPA is everything and everything is now GPRA." The GPRA effort has served to refocus and restructure the work of the agency toward achieving specific results. GPRA activities for the program as a whole fall into three categories: strategic planning, performance planning, and special demonstrations. The first two efforts have been described previously. This section discusses the special demonstration projects that, at OCSE's initative, the states have voluntarily undertaken to practice the GPRA principles of setting goals and objectives, determining performance measures, and measuring results. The most immediate and direct expression of GPRA, beyond the national Strategic Plan, is the existence of demonstration projects undertaken by 34 States and localities. A list of these projects is included in the Appendix. The State projects, solicited by Judge Ross as an extension of GPRA, foster and demonstrate GPRA principles and range from statewide projects to regional demonstrations to programs that will operate in a single county. The OCSE will provide technical assistance and consultation to these State and local demonstrations. The GPRA demonstrations are producing baseline and performance data and allowing validation of the data produced. "Several demonstrations focus on improving performance in all child support enforcement functions, while others take aim at enhancing specific functions, such as paternity establishment, asset identification, or medical support." [16] The special GPRA demonstration projects were seen by Judge Ross as a way to enhance the agency's GPRA pilot project. By getting States more directly involved in projects that would be geared toward achieving program goals, OCSE was encouraging the States to become active participants in GPRA. It was hoped that there might be additional funding to assist these state demonstration projects, but even without extra funding, most States, once approved, were eager to participate. They would receive extra attention and technical assistance for their efforts. Another GPRA initiative, in addition to the Strategic Plan, are six GPRA Research Demonstration Grants. These projects are cooperative agreements with States lasting up to 17 months. State child support enforcement agencies were eligible to apply for funding in order to demonstrate strategic planning, performance planning, performance measure development, and performance budgeting. In Judge Ross' view, GPRA also became an excellent vehicle for improving communications throughout OCSE.[17] The OCSE pilot project is program-wide and all OCSE staff are involved in achieving the national goals. Toward this end, there have been many efforts to increase and improve communications between regional offices and the central office. For example, there are now weekly conference calls from the central office to all of the regional offices covering many programmatic and policy issues. The GPRA task force, led by the GPRA Director Anne Donovan, took a lead in initiating these calls and increasing their frequency. Additional OCSE projects are focusing on program results as part of the GPRA. Executive Order 12953 mandates that all executive agencies of the Federal government facilitate the payment of child support. The OCSE is providing technical assistance to other executive branch agencies implementing this Executive Order by furnishing information on the child support program and assisting with annual efforts to inform all current and prospective Federal employees about the program. In another GPRA-related project, the Washington Metro Project is aimed at identifying and overcoming barriers in interstate child support cases among the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The OCSE is coordinating and facilitating efforts among the various State and local jurisdictions in an attempt to bridge the gaps between child support agencies in the metropolitan area. Methods for improving enforcement of interstate cases developed and tested in the Metro Project will be disseminated to similar metropolitan areas nationwide. The OCSE has also added specialists to its staff to focus exclusively on improving child support enforcement performance where cases involve Native Americans and foreign governments. New staff are also working on the problems of cases involving members of the Armed Forces and employees of the Federal government. There are also plans to add staff to liaison with law enforcement professionals on child support enforcement. Finally, there are two model office demonstration projects underway in Colorado and Maine testing various child support innovations in a controlled management environment. For example, they are examining certain aspects of welfare reform and improved enforcement and location techniques. Successful practices developed in these projects will be disseminated to all child support enforcement agencies. WHERE DOES OCSE GO FROM HERE? There are several issues facing OCSE as it plans to implement the performance measures developed for the national Strategic Plan. Assuming that consensus is achieved on the performance measures, the first step in implementation will be to begin efforts at data collection. There will need to be an assessment of how ready the States are to collect the necessary information. While it was initially hoped that all the States would have automated systems in place by October 1995, that deadline has now been extended to October, 1997 and certification is proceeding. The States will have to have fully operational systems and produce reliable data for the performance measures that have been identified, and some reprogramming of systems is likely. Meanwhile, several States have volunteered to pilot test the measures and what they learn during this testing will be valuable to the implementation efforts nationwide. An additional task will be to mesh the performance measures with the measures in any final welfare reform legislation. These measures will also need to be coordinated with those being established for incentive funding. It is OCSE's belief that the efforts of the Performance Measures Workgroup will flow smoothly into the incentive funding formula scheme envisioned in the Senate welfare reform bill. OCSE is confident that the Workgroup's efforts will save time in meeting the requirements of welfare reform because of the effort that has been made to date in thinking about and gaining consensus on appropriate measures. But it will also take time for the incentive measures to be developed and agreed upon. SUMMARY OF LESSONS LEARNED The implementation of GPRA in OCSE has been a long process requiring the time, involvement, energy, and enthusiasm of people at every level of the agency and among all of the State partners. The willing participation of all parties is certainly a key factor in the success of the effort. There are a number of other factors that contributed to what is generally perceived to be the success to date of the implementation of GPRA at OCSE. Among the most important of these is that the timing of the GPRA pilot coincided nicely with other efforts along the same lines that were already taking place at the agency. There was also the external pressure of welfare reform which forced the agency to confront the changes that were being contemplated by others. The OCSE was facing pressure for change internally and externally. By forcing a focus on performance outcomes, the GPRA gave a structure to that change, requiring development of a new Strategic Plan and consensus on performance measures, and enhanced Federal/State partnership. According to the testimony of Johnny C. Finch, Assistant Comptroller General, "officials in a number of Federal agencies said that one of the single most important incentives to changing behavior in their agencies so that managers and staff focus more on achieving desired outcomes will be the degree to which top leadership actively demonstrates its support for such change." [18] The encouragement and commitment to participate as a GPRA project came from the top of the agency. Assistant Secretary Mary Jo Bane and Deputy Director David Gray Ross are active and enthusiastic proponents of the results-oriented focus of GPRA. Their participation, support, and persistence in the effort was a necessary component of such a fundamental change. At the same time, there was recognition throughout the agency that an effort such as GPRA required the active participation of all child support enforcement partners and that a "top-down" approach to developing a strategic plan would not be effective. The States had to be included and were essential to the success of the program. At all stages of implementation, major efforts were made to communicate with partners, to include them in decisions, to solicit their opinions and listen carefully to their feedback. While there was an initial effort to develop goals and a draft Strategic Plan centrally, the lesson was learned very quickly by the central office that, according to one staff member, "Unless you set your goals together, they are your goals and not your partners' goals." It was necessary to overcome a distrust of the Federal office that the States had developed over the years. Prior to the implementation of GPRA, the relationship between the Federal staff and the States was not a true partnership. The Federal office had been in the position of setting the rules, writing regulations, calling the shots and paying most of the bills, as Betsy Matheson described it.[19] The States, as Matheson further noted, were the ones "doing the work and criticizing us." The Federal staff focussed more and more on program and process details and found there was less emphasis by everyone on the program results. It was necessary to change this relationship fundamentally and to foster a feeling of ownership and partnership among program staff at both the State and Federal levels. One of the first steps to overcoming the distrust that the States felt about the Federal staff was the selection of Anne Donovan as the GPRA Director. A former State IV-D Director, Donovan could identify with the problems faced by the States and she was also a key proponent of the new efforts toward increased communication and inclusion. Many people mentioned the selection of Anne Donovan as a crucial element of GPRA's success. Another way that the distrust among partners was overcome was by selecting an "outside" facilitator to work with the Core Team as it developed the Strategic Plan. Mike English and Hap Hadd, though they worked for HHS, were not perceived to be "Feds." They brought not only their professionalism and experience as facilitators to the discussions but also a neutrality that was necessary given the initial distrust on the part of the participants. This helped them to change the past behaviors. The Strategic Plan became a joint project of OCSE and the IV-D directors. Getting the active participation of the IV-D directors' organization was key in getting ultimate agreement on the Plan. In some cases, fellow IV-D directors could influence their colleagues in other states to go along with the Plan. But another important lesson learned was that there did not need to be -- nor should there be -- a unanimous vote to accept the Plan. On something as large and complicated as the Strategic Plan, it was important to seek a general consensus. Consensus doesn't necessarily mean that every one agrees with everything in the Plan; it means that everyone has had a chance to participate in the deliberations and "can live with " and accept the results of those deliberations. It is generally agreed upon that the videoconference was a very important tool in gaining consensus. As Cecelia Burke said later, "We were able to use technology to our advantage by involving more States in the discussions." [20] People felt that they were part of the process and they were also able to see the results of their hard work in a finalized Plan. Sometimes the feeling of true partnership comes not only from the process used to obtain a result but also from the fact that a tangible result has been achieved. In spite of the general consensus, however, one of the problems that will be faced in the future with implementing the Strategic Plan is that States still have to deal with their own separate agendas. While they may applaud and agree to the national goals, there are different political pressures and objectives facing different jurisdictions and these may have a higher priority than the national goals and objectives. In addition, the ever changing leadership in the States and Federal governments present a continuing challenge to implementing these changes. As with any change to a large, bureaucratic system, there will be resistance along the way. It is important that this resistance be anticipated and acknowledged ahead of time and that staff be aware that there will be inevitable roadblocks along the way. Change requires persistence and time. The Federal and State members of the Core Team and the expanded Performance Measures Workgroup worked long and hard to make sure that the Strategic Plan and performance measures were discussed and agreed to by all interested parties and they worked with an awareness that most of the effort to make the partnership work would be on their shoulders. One lesson they learned in this process was that they had to be prepared to do most of the work to develop the partnership because it was their priority and they had to overcome the distrust that the States had for the Federal office. There are some who feel that the State pilot projects should have begun after the Strategic Plan was developed so that they would focus only on the specific goals and objectives articulated in the Plan. Others argue that it was necessary to get started with the projects as soon as the GPRA pilot started and that waiting for the development of the Strategic Plan would have meant losing the momentum of GPRA. The outcome of these projects will have to be analyzed in the future. In conclusion, OCSE's implementation of the GPRA pilot has been very successful as of this writing. The State and Federal partners have worked together to develop a Strategic Plan that has been accepted by all of the States. The Performance Measures Workgroup has developed measures that they feel comfortable can be adopted and tested by the States. Individual States and some regions have developed pilot projects to expand the reach of GPRA. OCSE has succeeded, thus far, in fulfulling the major goals of the GPRA legislation: it is focusing its attention on the performance of the program; it is beginning to measures the results of the program; and it is examining the outcomes achieved by the program. Download FREE Adobe Acrobat® Reader™ to view PDF files located on this site.
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