GPRA a focus of funding

In both funding and language, the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday

emphasized the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, urging agencies

to put in place goals and procedures that will enable them to fulfill the

annual GPRA report to Congress that describes the results agencies gain

from the funding of programs.

In the case of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the

committee expressed concern that the agency's GPRA report would be useless

because of an inability to collect data to measure program results. So the

committee pulled $3 million from research and technology funding to be used

"exclusively for program evaluation and data collection to support strategic

planning, performance measurement and budget."

The committee also directed HUD to develop a multiyear plan for information

technology systems.

An amendment by Rep. James Walsh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Veterans

Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Subcommittee,

gives the Department of Veterans Affairs almost $43 million to continue

replacing the agency's core accounting system with a new integrated system.

Walsh's amendment also asks the Environmental Protection Agency to develop

a plan to integrate federal, state and local information systems to improve

environmental decision-making and improve information available to the public.