Planning and Budgeting Becoming More Outcome-Oriented Under Results Act

Under the Results Act, the Park Service for the first time has introduced servicewide goals to be achieved by park managers. Both the Park Service and individual parks have prepared 5-year strategic plans and annual performance plans. Although the Park Service has made some progress in aligning its budget structure and processes with its strategic plan, its efforts to link its plans and budgets have been hampered by the incompatibility between its activity-oriented budget and accounting systems and its goal-orientated strategic plan. Changes to the Budget Process in Early Stages of Implementation

The Results Act is based on the premise that budget decisions should be more clearly informed by expectations about program performance. As a first step toward bringing the agency’s budget presentations in line with its performance goals, the Park Service has developed an information system, called the Performance Management Data System (PMDS), which enables parks to enter their annual performance goals, along with the estimated funds and FTEs needed to achieve the goals, into a servicewide information system. Currently, park managers have no way to track or report how actual spending compared to planned spending by goal at the end of the fiscal year. These officials also identified challenges, such as the difficulty of holding managers accountable for achieving park goals, developing appropriate measures for achieving goals, and linking planning systems to budget and accounting systems. The officials told us that, despite these challenges, the strategic planning process produced benefits, such as increased communication and resource sharing within parks and information about how resources were being allocated among goals. Field-Oriented Approach to Training and Development of Strategic Plans Was Essential

The Park Service’s field-oriented approach, in which park managers participated in the development of the planning process, the servicewide plan, and, ultimately, the development of park-level plans, was essential to make these plans and processes meaningful to park staff and obtain their support. Finally, park officials suggested that a team approach to developing strategic and annual performance plans resulted in better plans with more buy-in from participants. Observations

We concluded in a previous report that by implementing the Results Act the Park Service can promote a better understanding by Congress and other stakeholders of (1) the agency’s and each park’s priorities, (2) the links between the agency’s and each park’s priorities, (3) the results achieved with the funds provided, and (4) the shortfalls in performance.As it sought to implement the Results Act, the Park Service has faced difficult circumstances, including multiple missions that are often competing and resistant to direct measurement, and extraordinarily decentralized operations, for which many parks possess distinct legislative mandates. Copies will also be made available to others upon request. GAO Comments

1. 2. 3. Implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act by the Park Service

The Park Service’s approach to implementing the Results Act was phased and iterative and involved both top management and field staff.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) how the Government Performance and Results Act has influenced planning and budgeting at the National Park Service (NPS); (2) the extent to which strategic and annual planning and budgeting processes have become linked and the challenges in achieving such a linkage; and (3) any insight that NPS's experiences with results-oriented management and budgeting suggest for other agencies implementing the Results Act.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) NPS implemented the Results Act by instituting a results-oriented planning process that has introduced for the first time servicewide goals to be achieved by park managers; (2) at the same time, NPS addressed the diversity and decentralized nature of the park system by requiring parks to develop strategic plans to address both applicable servicewide goals as well as goals specific to their unique legislative and operating environments; (3) both NPS and individual parks and programs have prepared strategic and annual performance plans with measurable outcome-oriented goals; (4) to link these plans to their budget, NPS designed an information system to report park estimates of spending according to goals; (5) although NPS has made some progress in connecting performance plans with budgets, significant issues remain to be resolved; (6) NPS's efforts to track actual spending according to performance goals have been hampered by the incompatibility between its activity-oriented budget and accounting systems and its goal-oriented strategic plan; (7) the most frequently cited challenges involved performance measurement and information systems; (8) performance measurement is complicated by the difficulty of defining outcome-oriented performance measures; (9) park staff also identified as a challenge the absence of information systems that link spending information to goals; (10) despite limited experience with managing for results, parks reported some benefits from their initial efforts; (11) benefits included better information about how park resources were being spent on desired park outcomes and increased communication and resource sharing across division lines; (12) although NPS is still in the early stages of implementing the Results Act, the progress it has made and the challenges that remain provide valuable insights that could prove useful to other agencies as they implement the act; (13) NPS has demonstrated how to develop an agencywide strategic planning process in a decentralized operating environment; (14) NPS officials recognized that strong field-level involvement in developing the servicewide plan and the field-oriented approach to implementing the Results Act resulted in greater ownership by the field staff charged with achieving the results; and (15) however, changes to these systems will require extensive consultations and consensus among the agency, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress.