Awards

The Center for Accountability and Performance (CAP) Annual Awards for 2025

THE HARRY HATRY DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE AWARD

The Harry Hatry Distinguished Performance Management Practice Award is presented to an individual whose outstanding teaching, education, training, and consultation in performance management has made a significant contribution to the practice of public administration.  The award winner must have spent the primary part of his/her career in public service.  This award recognizes a person who has made outstanding contributions on a sustained basis rather than a single accomplishment.

CAP is proud to announce the 2025 Harry Hatry Distinguished Performance Management Practice Award is awarded to Asma Mirza, Chief Performance Officer for the State of Maryland.  When appointed by Governor Wes Moore in 2023, she developed the state’s first state plan in over a decade.  Asma runs regular performance management reviews on each of the state’s ten priorities. Governor Moore recently appointed her to also lead the state’s government modernization efforts to find cost savings and improve operations.

Prior to her selection as Maryland’s first chief performance officer, she served as the chief of staff for the White House cross-agency COVID-19 response team and subsequently helped lead the White House governmentwide implementation team for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Previously, as a career employee at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, she was a key player in implementing the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010.  To that end, she: 

  • led the development of the White House Leadership Development Program to train a cadre of career senior managers with skills in working across agency boundaries. 
  • piloted the development of the first governmentwide program inventory required by the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010.
  • drafted Administration policy and guidance on the federal performance management framework, including agency and cross agency priority goals, and agency annual strategic reviews.
  • managed OMB reviews of the initial 126 agency priority goals across 24 major departments, which led to measurable improvements in goal achievement.
  • managed the performance.gov web platform, providing public transparency on federal performance-related initiatives.

In addition, she was designated as OMB’s point person for the presidential transition in 2016.

Highlights of her professional career include:

State of Maryland, Office of the Governor (2023 – present)

  • Chief Performance Officer for the State

The White House (2021 – 2023)

  • Deputy for Implementation Management, Infrastructure Implementation Team
  • Chief of Staff, COVID Response Team

Biden-Harris Transition Team (2020 – 2021)

  • Strategy and Operations Lead, Appointments Team

McKinsey & Company (2017 – 2020)

  • Specialized in public sector transformation and performance consulting for federal, state and local clients

U.S. Office of Management and Budget (2010 – 2017)

  • Senior Performance Manager, Office of Personnel and Performance Management 
  • Special Assistant, Deputy Director for Management

Ms. Mirza received a double major (B.S./B.A.) in Leadership and Change Management and Operations Information Management, from Georgetown University, and earned an MBA at the University of Maryland.

THE JOSEPH WHOLEY DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARSHIP AWARD

The Joseph Wholey Distinguished Scholarship Award (Annual) – This award is presented for outstanding scholarship on performance in public and nonprofit organizations.  The author(s) must provide a significant contribution to advancing knowledge in a scholarly journal or book about the development, implementation, use or impact of performance management.[1]  Preference will be given to a scholarly work that is relevant to the broad public administration community and is of interest to both practitioners and academicians.  

[1] The field of performance management includes performance measurement, strategic planning, program evaluation, strategic foresight, or the application of other evidence-based analytical tools.  It includes primarily organizational performance management and individual performance management to the extent that it contributes to organizational performance management.  For the purposes of this definition, it is not intended to include the cyclical individual performance reviews that are used in many human resources organizations. 

Eligibility Criteria – Topic: performance management related to organizational performance management or other similar topics (performance measurement, strategic planning, program evaluation, strategic foresight, or the application of other evidence-based analytical tools); Language: only included studies reported in English; Year of publication: within the dates of July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024; and Type of Article: peer-reviewed journal articles (viewpoint articles, editorials, book chapters, and articles that discussed cyclical individual performance reviews used in many human resources organizations were not included). 

Curation Strategy and Assessment Criteria – The Wholey Award Chair, in consultation with other CAP Board Members and affiliates, and especially journal editors, each reviewed and proposed the relevant articles.  The articles that emerged as overlapping articles on multiple lists received were then closely studied.  Potential award winners were selected based on the study filling a literature gap, showing clear empirical support of its main findings, demonstrating organization and ease of reading, and offering real, applicable solutions in public administration. 

CAP is proud to announce that the 2025 Joseph Wholey Distinguished Scholarship Award will be presented to Aline Bretas de Menezes and Alketa Peci for their article in Public Administration Review, “The Benefits of Nonprofit Reputation: Government Funding, Nonprofit Performance, and Nonprofit Reputational Gains – A Study of the Brazilian Ministry of Health and Nonprofit Hospitals;” Aline Bretas de Menezes and Alketa Peci; Public Administration Review; March/April 2024; pages 323-337.

Abstract provided the authors: Reputation is a valuable intangible resource whose role in public–nonprofit collaborations remain unexplored.  Does nonprofit reputation influence government funding and nonprofit performance?  Does nonprofit performance enhance nonprofit reputational gains? Our identification strategy adopts panel regression methods to assess whether nonprofit reputation influences government funding and nonprofit performance in 675 collaborations between the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MoH) and 60 nonprofit hospitals from 2012 to 2019.  Our results indicate that reputable nonprofit hospitals receive more government funding, hire more staff and achieve higher levels of production.  This research also suggests a virtuous cycle: Better nonprofit performance leads to nonprofit reputational gains in official rankings.  We thus contribute to reputation and public–nonprofit collaboration scholarship by empirically examining the role of nonprofit reputation in public–nonprofit collaborations and identifying mediators of the nonprofit reputation–performance link while responding to calls for more panel data analyses.

Comments by the Award Chair:

This is a 7-year study on the impact that funding has on reputation and performance; and that performance has on funding and reputation.  It’s an interesting and unusual approach to nonprofit agencies, which are not often the source of study.  This study takes place in Brazil.

THE CAP ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP AWARD

The CAP Organizational Leadership Award, presented to an organization, recognizes outstanding applications of a systems approach to performance measurement that has resulted in a culture change, sustained improvements, and demonstrated positive effects on government performance and accountability.  The award recognizes an organization, rather than a person that has yielded outstanding results on a sustained basis.  The organization may be selected from all levels of public service organizations, including local, state, or federal government, as well as from international and public service nonprofit organizations.  Preference will be given to an organization whose results have been measured and whose impact has been documented in the literature or at conferences.

CAP is proud to announce that the recipient of the 2025 Organizational Leadership Award is the City of Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and its Office of Performance Management and Open Data (OPMOD). 

Background

The City of Chattanooga’s Office of Performance Management and Open Data (OPMOD) is a small team within the department of Innovation Delivery and Performance (IDP).  Launched in 2014, The Office of Performance Management and Open Data is a small team of data driven individuals who are seeking to better the City of Chattanooga.  They understand the power of data in today’s world, and they seek to push the City internally to maximize the immense amounts of data it has to the benefit of its constituents.  The Office utilizes several methodologies to achieve its mission.  The Office runs several types of training aimed at front line employees as they understand the Performance Management Office itself cannot serve all data needs through City government.  They also push data top-down via departmental performance measures submitted by departments along with their request for funding each year.  Ultimately, these programs are aimed at driving change and higher usage of data-driven decision-making tools within the City of Chattanooga.

Their Mission 

The Office of Performance Management and Open Data (OPMOD) exists to catalyze citizen-focused and data-driven solutions that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the City’s delivery of services. 

Their Vision

All city departments can access, analyze, and understand their data.  All Chattanoogans can find relevant metrics and public data about their city and neighborhood.  Chattanoogans are empowered to collect data about their community and share this with their city. 

To achieve their mission, the City of Chattanooga employs several methodologies: 

  • Training programs that target front-line employees, ensuring that data utilization is widespread and not confined to the Office of Performance Management and Open Data alone.  These initiatives are designed to drive change and enhance the use of data-driven tools throughout the city government.
  • The promotion of data-driven decision-making through departmental performance measures, which departments submit annually along with their funding requests.
  • Engaging the local community through presentations and supporting community data gathering events. 

Specifically, the Office of Performance Management and Open Data (OPMOD) offers the following services to city departments of Chattanooga: 

  • Data Analysis: work to identify impact and trends in data 
  • Data Cleaning and Processing: geocoding, merging datasets
  • Data Consulting: work to develop meaningful metrics 
  • Data Feeds: set up real-time data feeds
  • Data Navigation: help navigate the city data ecosystem
  • Data Pipelining: Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) 
  • Data Publishing: share datasets with other departments or the public via ChattaData
  • Data Warehousing: store data in a warehouse ready for business intelligence analysis
  • Data Apps and Services: build custom web pages, web maps, notification systems 
  • Program Evaluation: evaluate the impact of services 
  • Training and Capacity Building: a Data Academy, and Hands-On Workshops 

As a demonstration of effectiveness and results, below are a few recent achievements:

  • Real-Time Map of Reported Flooding and Road Closures: OPMOD, in partnership with the department of Innovation Delivery and Performance (IDP), Public Works, and Technology Services, built and deployed the only real-time public map by a city, of reported flooding and road closures during Hurricane Helene.  Unlike maps based on statistical modeling, this map connected to near real-time feeds from both 911 and 311, increasing confidence in the data.  Both city staff and the public monitored the performance of the city’s response to a historic amount of rainfall.  The residents of Chattanooga called in reports of flooding to 311, contributing to this whole-of-city collaborative approach to performance monitoring.  Finally, and very importantly, citizens could use this map to safely avoid routes where flooding was reported. 
  • Public Dashboards: OPMOD maintains an enterprise data platform for the city called Chattadata, and works to build capacity throughout the city, enabling departments to build their own dashboards.  The Office of Community Health (OCH) and the Office of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (OHSH) stand out as leaders in building dashboards that share metrics useful for both city staff and the public.  Both the city and the public assess the delivery of critical programs: nurse navigators, community safety, and homelessness and supportive housing.   
  • High-Quality Daily Car Crash Dataset: Building on top of the detailed and diligent documentation of the Chattanooga Police Department, OPMOD released the most detailed current public dataset of car crashes in the State of Tennessee while also preserving privacy.  The previous vehicle incidents dataset had 30 columns, whereas the new dataset has 212 columns!  Notably this new dataset includes information about the specific sequence of events, surface condition, weather, and much more.  This car crash data helps inform decision-making within the city and also informs the public, with Chattadatabeing frequently cited as the source behind statistics mentioned in public news articles. 

THE CAP EMERGING LEADERS AWARD OF EXCELLENCE WINNERS

The CAP Emerging Leaders Award of Excellence annually recognizes up to five early- to mid-career professionals in the field of performance management at the federal, state, or local levels.  These awards are presented at the CAP board meeting associated with the annual ASPA meeting.  This year’s Emerging Leaders Awards recognize 3 new recipients, who join 38 previous recipients of this award, which has been presented annually since 2016.

CAP is proud to announce that the following individuals are recipients of the CAP 2025 Emerging Leaders Award of Excellence:

Christine Koh

Budget and Program Evaluation Manager, Madison, WI

  • Before becoming the City of Madison’s Budget and Program Evaluation Manager, Christine was the SomerStat Analyst for the City of Somerville, MA, and worked for the Innovation Field Lab at Harvard Business School. 
  • As the Budget and Program Evaluation Manager, Christine leads city-wide efforts to coordinate, manage, and use data effectively, which includes performance reviews of City agencies and budget transparency efforts (e.g., Madison is one of the few local governments that publishes detailed budget requests) in support of racial equity, social justice, and performance goals.  The goals of Christine’s department are to facilitate a transparent budget process, execute projects as part of the Data Governance work plan, and continue to expand data management, analysis, and visualization tools allowing staff, policymakers, and residents to understand and interact with data.
  • Christine has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, where the focus of her capstone project was From Working Cities to Working Communities – Recommendations for Building Civic Infrastructure in Rural New England, which she prepared for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.  Christine has a Bachelor’s Degree from Smith College. 

Daniel Ramos

Executive Director, Office of Management and Budget, Harris County, TX

  • Before joining the Harris County Office of Management and Budget, Daniel spent nearly 10 years working for the City of Baltimore in several positions ranging from an Operations Research Analyst for the Baltimore City Fire Department to a Deputy Chief Administrative Officer. 
  • In addition to managing Harris County’s $5.3 billion budget, Daniel has improved the budget process, keeping the focus on outcomes.  This past year, Daniel oversaw the development and implementation of a standardized catalog of programs and services, aligning them to the County’s strategic priorities.  Daniel and his team also advanced outcome budgeting in Harris County, most recently through the facilitation of Goal Area Committees (GACs), that met with individual departments using Department Progress Meetings (DPMs) to understand strategic priorities and service delivery. 
  • Daniel has both an MBA and a Bachelor’s Degree from Johns Hopkins University.  

Denise Linn Riedl

Chief Innovation Officer, City of South Bend, IN

  • Denise has been the City of South Bend’s Chief Innovation Officer for nearly six years.  During that time, she has overseen the launch of Build the Budget, an approach to soliciting community input to inform budget decisions, supported the City’s achievement of What Works Cities Gold Certification, and supported city departments in leveraging data to inform government services. 
  • Her team is working on the development and implementation of a translation application that will translate documents of many different formats, and send them to human experts to review and approve, saving time and energy for other functions.  During her tenure the City of South Bend was also recognized as the #1 Digital City in its population bracket (at NLC CCC ’24) and received the 2024 Mission41K Exceptional Employer Award recognizing excellence in tech talent recruiting and retention.  See more awards and accomplishments on the Department of Innovation & Technology’s medium page.
  • Denise has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Virginia.