Kendra S. Horn: “The bill before us today H.R. 2883, Government Performance and Results Act Technical Amendments of 1997 is critical to…”

“The bill before us today H.R. 2883, Government Performance and Results Act Technical Amendments of 1997 is critical to the successful implementation of the ``results'' act passed in 1993. As I said earlier, we want the executive agencies to get it right. Many of those agencies did not even relate their goals to the statutory authorization. We need to develop the performance indicators. Only then, will the executive branch have a way to choose between programmatic options on the various programs that exist in the executive branch. Regardless of who is in control in the executive branch, Congress needs to give scrutiny to those data. The agencies need to give us programs that make some sense fiscally and that are achieving the goals that have often been approved in this Chamber on a bipartisan basis. This bill essentially does three things. First, it asks the Federal agencies to add details to their strategic plan about overlapping programs and management problems. The agencies would submit the revised plans by the end of Fiscal Year 1998 [September 30, 1998]. If we do not do that, you are going to have three years where the executive branch does absolutely nothing, and that is the problem. Second, it requires inspectors general to audit agency performance measures.”