Are federal programs earning their keep? That was the question the Bush Administration sought to answer when it took over in 2001. To answer it, the White House Office of Management and Budget was called upon to develop a common set of standards that could be used to ascertain whether federal programs were actually fulfilling the missions under which they were created.

If a program is not doing what it is supposed to do, why are taxpayers still funding it?

The performance standards drafted by OMB were designed to complement the goals and objectives already established in the President's Management Agenda, a sweeping document created by the Administration to overhaul the areas of federal agency management that were inefficient and ineffectual. Together, they share four basic principles:

Performance
Accountability
Competition
Transparency

With the help of the President's Management Council in early 2002, OMB's performance standards were utilized in the creation of a universal tool for measuring program performance - a tool that would place the government's focus squarely on results. This product was the Program Assessment Rating Tool, or "PART."

The PART is essentially a questionnaire - an evaluation form consisting of four sections that each measures a specific management aspect of federal programs. As stated in an early memo articulating the methodology of the PART, it "will focus agency attention on strategic planning, meaningful performance measures, and program results."

Those four sections are merely categories of questions which, when added up, reflect a program's strengths and weaknesses in these four basic areas:

Program Purpose and Design
Strategic Planning
Program Management
Program Results and Accountability

Recognizing that not all federal programs are funded the same way and therefore may have special considerations that must be reflected, OMB took the original PART and customized it to create seven new evaluation forms that took "program type" into account. Those seven types are listed below.

In creating the Fiscal Year 2004 budget, the Bush Administration used the PART as a means to assess program performance and in turn, budget allocations. Although the results found with the PART were considered during the allocation process, they were by no means the sole factor, or even the primary factor. This is partly the result of an Administration decision to evaluate the entire federal bureaucracy in stages of 20 percent per year. Thus by the time the FY2008 budget is released, all programs will have undergone a PART analysis.

The Office of Management and Budget has released several documents containing guidance with regard to the PART analysis.

Memorandum from OMB Director to Agency Heads on "Program Performance Assessments for the FY 2004 Budget." (July 16, 2002) HTML | PDF

Attachment I - Programs to Be Assessed for FY04 (Oct. 30, 2002) HTML | Word

Guidance from OMB on Instructions for the Program Assessment Rating Tool (April 18, 2002) PDF

Instructions for Using the Program Assessment Rating Tool Worksheets (FY2002) HTML | PDF