The Government Performance & Results Act of 1993 seeks to strengthen Federal decision-making & accountability by focusing on the results of Federal activities & spending. This report reviews selected FY 1999 performance plans to: (1) describe agencies' approaches to linking performance goals & budgetary resources, (2) examine characteristics that might be associated with different approaches to linking performance goals & budgetary resources, & (3) identify implications for future efforts to clarify the relationship between budgetary resources & results. Reviews 35 FY 1999 performance plans that covered entire agencies or large bureaus, services, or administration.

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act) seeks to strengthen federal decision-making and accountability by focusing on the results of federal activities and spending. A key expectation is that the Congress will gain a clearer understanding of what is being achieved in relation to what is being spent To accomplish this, the act requires that, beginning for fiscal year 1999, agencies prepare annual performance plans containing annual performance goals covering the program activities in agencies' budget requests. In addition, Office of Management and Budget (0MB) guidance states that agency performance plans should display, by program activity the funding level being applied to achieve performance goals. Plans that meet these expectations can provide the Congress with useful information on the performance consequences of budget decisions. Our assessment of fiscal year 1999 performance plans found that agencies generally covered the program activities in their budgets, but most plans did not identify how the funding for those program activities would be 2 allocated to performance goals. To enhance the Congress' understanding of issues that may affect agencies' abilities to relate budgetary resources and results, you requested that we review selected fiscal year 1999 performance plans to (1) describe agencies' approaches to linking performance goals and budgetary resources, (2) examine characteristics that might be associated with different approaches to linking performance goals and budgetary resources, and (3) identify implications for future efforts to clarify the relationship between budgetary resources and results. More clearly describing and analyzing the approaches agencies developed to link funding requests with performance expectations can be an important foundation as the Congress reviews agencies' fiscal year 2000 performance plans.

AIMD/GGD-99-67 Performance Budgeting: Initial Experiences Under the Results Act in Linking Plans With Budgets