Labor scores green sweep on President's Management Agenda

President's Management Agenda Scorecard

Third-quarter executive agency scorecards released today show agencies are beginning to earn management scores that draw praise from Office of Management and Budget executives.

Clay Johnson, OMB’s deputy director for management, identified the Labor Department as the first to achieve an “all green” score card for management this quarter. Executive branch agencies have made significant improvements in their management practices over the past four years, Johnson said in a statement released today.

“The president’s emphasis on improving management is working,” Johnson said. When OMB began keeping management scores in 2002, 85 percent of agencies’ status scores were red, or unsatisfactory. Now, 75 percent of the scores are green or yellow, meaning successful or satisfactory.

Comparing this year’s third-quarter score card to last year’s, Johnson said, agencies earned 43 green-status scores, a gain of 16.

Agencies’ scores are based on how well they handle five distinct management challenges, which are managing human capital, competitive sourcing, financial performance, e-government and budget-and-performance integration.

Almost across the board, agencies score lowest on financial performance. This quarter, 17 out of 26 agencies earned red-status scores for financial management.

In his statement, Johnson noted that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is the first executive agency to earn green-status scores for eliminating improper payments and for faith-based and community initiatives.

Referring to Labor’s achievement, Johnson said “now Labor is challenged to show the other agencies how having all the desired management disciplines in place can affect their performance.”