Performance Budgeting: Current Developments and Future Prospects

Since the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) was enacted in 1993, federal agencies increasingly have been expected to link strategic plans and budget structures with program results. The current administration has taken several steps to strengthen and further the performance-resource linkage by making budget and performance integration one of its five management initiatives included in the President's Management Agenda. GAO has reported and testified numerous times on agencies' progress in making clearer connections between resources and results and how this information can inform budget deliberations. The administration's use of the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) for the fiscal year 2004 President's budget and further efforts in fiscal year 2005 to make these connections more explicit, have prompted our examination of what can and cannot be expected from performance budgeting.