GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING STANDARDS BOARD (GASB)

State of LOUISIANA

Louisiana’s effort is grounded in managing-for-results.  Penalties and incentives are built into the legislation to address performance.  There seems to be a lot of executive-legislative interaction in terms of measurement use and the budgeting process.  The main components of the budgeting cycle are:  (1) Five-year strategic plans; (2) annual operations plans; (3) annual performance-based budgets; (4) quarterly and annual performance reports.

The recent beginning of the measurement effort dates back to 1987 and has been legislatively driven.  Accountability was the most frequently mentioned reason for implementing performance measures among public officials.  There is a desire for better dialog between the executive and legislative agencies via the use of identical indicators.  Public officials also want better communication with the public.  There seems to be a strong desire among public officials and staff to include the citizenry in planning—although the way they talk about it—when they say citizenry, they mean industry (e.g., the language used by the Department of Environmental Quality) and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of involvement at the time of the study.  Measures are causing problems in terms of intra-governmental relations (Executive-Legislative-Judicial). Communication issues are prominent.  Further still, internal attitudes toward performance measurement are bad.

Items of note include:

• The role of the public and media has been limited. 

• Most agencies do not involve the public in strategic planning, development of goals or indicators. 

• The Environment Quality Department reported a large-scale outreach effort to obtain citizen input for setting priorities in the strategic plan. 

• The Department of Transportation said it had a long history of public outreach prior to the legislative requirement. 

• The Department of Education used public input to develop report cards. 

• According to respondents, the general public has not shown an interest in performance information but special interest groups have—coming up with their own interpretations of the information. 

• Executive planning staff report receiving many inquiries from citizens since data have been available on the web. 

• One department noted that they anticipated talking to stakeholder groups in the strategic planning process but they ran out of time and resources.  Another used citizen surveys and the internet to gather “needs” information. 

• The Department of Environmental Quality participated in an EPA program which gave them more flexibility in the strategic planning process—allowing them to include citizenry. 

• Public officials indicate that there is comprehensive performance information available on the internet. 

• School performance reports are sent to parents. 

• The Department of Environmental Quality interviewed 250 stakeholders.  They then used press releases and the internet to get more stakeholders involved in strategic planning. 

• Special interests are finding more use for performance measures than the general public. 

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 Background Information:

• GASB Performance Measurement Home
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