Substance Abuse And Mental Health Services Administration: Planning for Program Changes and Future Workforce Needs Is Incomplete
GAO-04-683
Published: Jun 04, 2004. Publicly Released: Jul 06, 2004.
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Highlights
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the lead federal agency responsible for improving the quality and availability of prevention and treatment services for substance abuse and mental illness. The upcoming reauthorization review of SAMHSA will enable the Congress to examine the agency's management of its grant programs and plans for converting its block grants to performance partnership grants, which will hold states more accountable for results. GAO was asked to provide the Congress with information about SAMHSA's (1) strategic planning efforts, (2) efforts to manage its workforce, and (3) partnerships with state and community-based grantees.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration | To improve SAMHSA's management of its programs, promote the effective use of its resources, and increase program accountability, the Administrator of SAMHSA should develop a detailed succession strategy to ensure SAMHSA has the appropriate workforce to carry out the agency's mission. |
On February 2, 2005, SAMHSA noted that to further refine the future needs of the organization, that it had (1)analyzed its workforce data to more accurately predict anticipated retirements and future staffing needs, (2)reviewed its strategic direction and its revised management objectives to clarify the future needs of the organization; and (3) conducted focus groups to address specific competencies needed to ensure continuity for all key positions in the organization. SAMHSA also indicated that it had launched a leadership development program in the summer 2004, which it described as the cornerstone of its succession planning and human capital strategy.
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| Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration | To improve SAMHSA's management of its programs, promote the effective use of its resources, and increase program accountability, the Administrator of SAMHSA should complete hiring and training strategies, and assess the results, to ensure that the agency's workforce has the appropriate expertise to implement performance partnership grants. | On February 2, 2005, SAMHSA reported undertaking a series of actions to ensure state project officers possessed the skills necessary to implement increased accountability based on performance in the block grant programs, including in-service staff training sessions and a project officer competency checklist. Subsequently, in August 2006, SAMHSA indicated that (1) from January 2005 through September 2005, the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) had completed all core training, and by March 2006 it had conducted training in statistical methods and performance management for all staff; and (2) the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention had developed a comprehensive training strategy...
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| Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration | To improve SAMHSA's management of its programs, promote the effective use of its resources, and increase program accountability, the Administrator of SAMHSA should expedite completion of its plan for the Congress providing information on the agency's proposal for implementing the performance partnership grants and any legislative changes that must precede their implementation. |
In June 2005, SAMHSA issued "A REPORT REQUIRED BY CONGRESS ON PERFORMANCE PARTNERSHIPS: A Discussion of SAMHSA's Efforts to Increase Accountability Based on Performance in Its Block Grant Program by Instituting National Outcome Measures."
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| Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration | To improve SAMHSA's management of its programs, promote the effective use of its resources, and increase program accountability, the Administrator of SAMHSA should develop a procedure that gives applicants whose discretionary grant application contains administrative errors an opportunity to revise and resubmit their application within an established time frame. |
On February 2, 2005, SAMHSA reported that it found the remedy proposed by GAO to be unwarranted. SAMHSA indicated that in FY 2004, it had improved its procedures to ensure that applications are subjected to peer review whenever possible, and that the new procedures had yielded a substantial decrease in the percentage of applications excluded from peer review. According to SAMHSA, the exclusion rate declined from about 19 percent in FY 2003 to about 6 percent in FY 2004. SAMHSA reported that it anticipated that the percentages would decline further with additional clarification and publicity of its requirements to prospective applicants.
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Topics
Substance abuseCommunity-based mental health servicesSubstance abuse treatmentSubstance abuseSubstance abuse treatmentstate relationsGrant administrationGrant award proceduresLabor forceMental health care servicesMental illnessesPerformance measuresPersonnel managementReporting requirementsStrategic planningSubstance abusePartnerships