Agencies Get Good Marks on Bush's Performance Scorecard

Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate federal financial management subcommittee, has his own proposal to reduce improper payments. His bill, announced last week, would tighten the law, expand the number of programs analyzed for improper payments and levy fines on agencies not in compliance with the law.

Efforts to improve the internal management of federal programs have been a staple of numerous administrations, including the Clinton administration, which put Vice President Al Gore in charge of "reinventing government."

The Bush administration has called on 26 agencies to adopt plans to better manage their people, money, technology and programs, and to cut costs, either by becoming more efficient or outsourcing work.

Robert Shea, a senior policy official at the OMB, has overseen an effort to evaluate the government's major programs. Currently 22 percent of the programs cannot demonstrate results or are ineffective, down from 55 percent when the effort began, he said.

To track progress toward Bush's goals, the administration created a scorecard using traffic-light dots to signify each agency's status -- green for good, yellow for moderately acceptable and red for unsatisfactory.

The OMB's Johnson updates the scorecard on a quarterly basis, posts the results on an administration Web site ( http://www.results.gov/) and meets with Bush at least once a year to show him the scorecard.

Last week, Johnson said two more agencies -- the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration -- have achieved all green scores. They joined the Labor Department, which has had a perfect score since 2005.

Perfect scores do not mean that the three agencies operate flawlessly, Johnson said, but "they have a greater ability to be effective than other agencies that aren't all green."

New Postal Board Chairman

Alan C. Kessler, a partner in a Philadelphia law firm, has been elected chairman of the U.S. Postal Service board of governors.

Kessler, a Democratic Party fundraiser and financial co-chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, succeeds James C. Miller III, a Republican and former member of the Reagan administration.

The postal board elects a chairman every year, and governors usually take turns holding the position. Miller, whose term expires in 2010, had held the chair for the last three years.

Kessler's term expires in December. He is a partner at Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen and served on the presidential transition team for Bill Clinton, who appointed him to be a postal governor.

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.