Number: 105-9
Date: March 13, 1998

On Thursday, March 12,1998, the House passed by a vote of 242-168, H.R. 2883, the Government Performance and Results Act Technical Amendments of 1998. The major provisions of interest are delineated below.

Strategic Plans

• Requires Federal agencies to revise, update and resubmit to Congress and to the Office of Management and Budget COMB) strategic plans not later than September 30, 1998 and of every third year thereafter. The plans must:
  
  
  • identify similar overlapping funct ions and programs within and among Federal agencies and explain coordination efforts to ensure overlapping initiatives arc subject to complementary goals, strategies and performance measures.
    
  • identify major management problems, including but not limited to programs and activities at high risk for waste, abuse or mismanagement affecting the agency, that have been documented by the agency Inspector General (IG), the General Accounting Office and others, and reflect specific goals, strategies and performance measures to resolve those problems.
    
  • include an assessment by the agency head of the adequacy and reliability of the agency data sources and information and accounting systems to support its strategic plans and performance plans and performance reports. To the extent inadequacies exist, the plan should include an explanation from the agency head of how the agency will resolve them.
    
  • be prepared and submitted as a single document and formatted in a manner that clearly demonstrates the linkages among the elements of the plan. Executive departments are required to submit department-wide strategic plans and separate component strategic plans for each of the major mission-related components of the department.

Performance Plans and Performance Reports

• Directs OMB to submit to Congress no later than March 31, 2000, and no later than March 31 of each year thereafter, an integrated, governmentwide performance report for the fiscal year to include, among other Government Performance Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) requirements, actual results and accomplishments.
  
• Directs OMB to require agencies when developing performance plans covering each program activity set forth in its budget to establish performance indicators which shall include determination of the full costs of each program activity. The term "full costs" is to be defined as used in the most recent Managerial Cost Accounting Standards of the Federal Financial Accounting Standards.
  
• Requires agency IGs to develop and implement a plan to review agency strategic plans, performance plans and performance reports. The IG review should include an examination of agency efforts to develop and use performance measures and that verifies and validates selected agency data sources, information collection systems and accounting systems . In developing the review plan and selecting specific performance indicators, supporting data sources, etc., to be examined, the lGs are required to:
  
  
  • consult with congressional committees and agency heads, including in determining the scope and course of their review.
    
  • emphasize performance measures associated with programs or activities believed to have a high risk of waste, fraud , or mismanagement, and based on IG assessment, need a review of the controls applied in developing the performance data to ensure accuracy of those data.
    
  • Directs the IGs to submit the review plan to the Congress and the agency heads at least annually, beginning no later than October 31, 1998.
    
• Requires agency IGs to audit agency strategic plans, performance plans and performance reports and to submit the results, and recommendations to Congress and the agency heads not later than April 30 and October 31 of each year. Such submission shall be made as part of the semiannual reports required under the Inspector General Act of 1978.
  
• Directs the Council on Environmental Quality to comply with the provisions of Government Performance and Results Act of 1993.
  
• Clarifies that GPRA applies to the Federal Reserve System's Board of Governors and to the Federal Reserve banks, but only with respect to operations and functions that are not directly related to the establishment and conduct of the monetary policy of the United States.