Results Leadership Group

As printed in the New London Day on 6/7/2009

For a very long time Connecticut has done a poor job of deciding how much tax money to spend on state programs. Typically the General Assembly renews programs each year without any objective review of how effective they are.

In good times, the legislature increases spending to pay for raises and provide for inflation. When professional staff identify unmet needs or problems, the automatic response is to throw more money at the issue. But there is usually no follow-up to determine whether the increased spending is effective.

In hard times, when spending cuts are required, they are equally ill informed. With no good measure as to which programs are effective and which are not, the governor and legislature base cuts on their political priorities, missing the opportunity to eliminate wasteful operations and maintain funding for quality ones.

Rep. Diana Urban, a Democrat representing North Stonington and Stonington, has for several years been the leader of a once small but now growing number of legislators willing to try a fundamentally different approach - results-based accountability (RBA). The concept is to base budget decisions on tangible results.
This newspaper has consistently supported RBA. Up until now, however, the Connecticut legislature has experimented with RBA only on a very small scale. That is about to change.

Confronted with unprecedented budget deficit projections, the General Assembly approved a bill that requires the Program Review and Investigations (PRI) Committee to assess human services programs, which account for among the largest expenditures in the budget, using the RBA method. By January the committee must report to the Appropriations Committee with recommendations on whether to modify or terminate programs and with an evaluation of the results-based method. The state agencies are required to cooperate with the review.

We strongly urge and expect Gov. M. Jodi Rell to sign this pilot program into law. If successful it could radically change the budget process for the better. It won’t solve the current budget crisis, but it could help avert future ones.

Rep. Urban expects the Department of Children and Families will undergo the first review. The DCF mission statement sums up the result the state expects from the money it invests in the department: ?To protect children, improve child and family well-being and support and preserve families.?
Did the $935.4 million invested in the department this year effectively further that mission? If so, what is the evidence? Did the $5.5 million spent on ?Family Preservation Services? really preserve families? Is spending $4.65 million on child abuse and neglect intervention sufficient, effectual or properly targeted? Are other state agencies supporting the work of the DCF, duplicating it or working at cross purposes?

The legislature needs such answers to make the right spending decisions. And when confronted with the facts, lawmakers need the political will to cut ineffective programs and shift spending to successful ones without regard for the cry of the special interests.

RBA is no panacea. Debates will continue, and should, on what is the proper role of government. And determining the effectiveness of social programs will always be more challenging than assessing success in the private sector, where the bottom line is sales and revenue generation.
But if not perfect, it is far better than the thoughtless ritual taxpayers now witness each session. It is time for a change.

The story of Connecticut?s use of results-based accountability to ensure better outcomes for young children. Features Rep. Diana Urban, Janice Gruendel, the governor?s senior policy advisor on early childhood, and David Nee, Executive Director of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A group of leading nonprofit organizations has launched a new website that gives state and local policymakers valuable information about proven strategies to overcome a range of problems affecting American children, families and communities.

The site, PolicyForResults.org, offers innovative and effective approaches states and localities can take to help families increase their employment, acquire and retain assets (savings, homes and cars), and ensure that their children are reading well by third grade. For families in crisis, the site focuses on how more children can stay safely at home and not in foster care, and how to reduce the unnecessary and costly detention of juveniles in trouble with the law.

The website also provides up-to-date national data so that state officials and advocates can assess how their state is faring in vital areas such as child poverty rates, third and fourth grade reading achievement levels, and incidence of foster care and juvenile detention rates, when compared to national norms.

“This website will help governors, state legislators, mayors, county commissioners and other public officials make wiser investments to safeguard the future of their state’s children and families,” said Doug Nelson, president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation.