ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Value of Evidence-Based Decisionmaking

PATimes

Even in agencies that vocally support evidence-based decision-making and use one of the decision-making modalities described in the article, there exists the potential for the evidence to be muddied through ineffective leadership. Too often, sub-optimal outcomes are the product of professional judgment that derails an informed rational decision-making process.

Dataphobia

Barrett & Greene

With so many numbers being tossed around without any backing, it’s no wonder that there’s some good reasons to doubt every data point you come across. But the more the very notion grows, that much of the data used by the states and localities is invalid, the less likely it is that residents will trust their work at all.

Navigating Nonprofit Scandals: Audit’s Role in Accountability.

 Center for Accountability & Performance (Free Webinar, Tuesday, Aug 12, 1 p.m. Eastern)

This webinar will focus on the critical role of audit teams in ensuring nonprofit accountability and effective crisis response in the wake of scandals and controversies. Attendees will develop a better understanding of stakeholder collaboration, navigating tight deadlines, tracing internal control breakdowns to their root causes and applying these skills using real-world examples from San Francisco and Austin.

Dallas Implements Priority-Based Budgeting

IMessenger

Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert released the proposed balanced biennial budget for FY 2025-26 and FY 2026-27 to the Mayor and City Council today, Friday, August 8. This year’s budget is focused on Investing in Priority Programs and People.

Large Language Models Transforming Evidence-Based Policy-Making

PATimes

Artificial Intelligence will become a very useful “what if and why” co-pilot in the multi-layered, multiple chessboard challenge that public administration faces every day… if it includes a key component: the ability to explain itself. 

Four Ways Leaders can Measure & Monitor Progress

PuMP Academy (Webinar: Wed., Oct 1, 4 p.m. Eastern)

This webcast will go over the four ways that leaders can monitor progress, using a framework to help find the right balance between measuring activity versus impact, and measuring effort versus leverage.

Linking Budgeting Knowledge to Service Delivery Performance in a Philippine City Government

Psychology & Education: A Multidisciplinary Journal

Findings revealed a moderate positive and statistically significant relationship between budgeting knowledge and service delivery performance, with officials showing strong skills in budget preparation and authorization but encountering challenges in budget execution. The study highlights the importance of capacity-building programs, mentorship, and evidence-based budgeting to enhance local governance.

Optimizing Performance Using Values-Based Management

National Academy of Public Administration

This white paper outlines a strategic, four-step framework to help agencies sustain and improve performance. Drawing on lessons from past downsizing efforts and best practices in Value-Based Management (VBM) and Agile principles, this analysis provides actionable guidance for navigating organizational transformation in a resource-constrained environment.

Managers Are Lynchpins to Performance

Government Executive (Op-Ed: Howard Risher)

To reach its performance management goals, U.S. Office of Personnel Management may need to look at the inherent challenges facing agency managers and how to improve their engagement.

Aligning Evaluation and Auditing to Improve Municipal Performance in South Africa

Journal of Law and Sustainable Development

This paper examines the persistent inefficiencies in South African municipalities, focusing on financial management, procurement, and service delivery. The primary objective of this study is to propose a Unified Oversight Framework that integrates evaluation and auditing functions at the municipal level, which can enhance performance and accountability in local governance.

Ten Tips for Better Performance Management

Barrett & Greene

During the last three (plus) decades, Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene have seen a number of flaws crop up in the performance management functions of cities, counties and states. Some of these are obvious — like the problems caused by low quality data — others are not. This article sums up ten tips that they believe can be useful for entities that covet success in this discipline.

Validating Social Security’s Performance Metrics

NextGov

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano has agreed to have the agency’s inspector general audit SSA’s performance data and to publicly report a broader list of data, Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said after meeting with the longtime financial services businessman who took over the agency in May.

Tracking Educational Performance

Washington Post           

What are the best ways to measure whether an education system is preparing students for life after high school? That’s a difficult question to answer because of a lack of quality data. But thanks to the National Governors Association, that could soon change. NGA Chair Jared Polis, Governor of Colorado is releasing a report detailing a roadmap to collect data and measure performance.

Building an Evidence Engine

Public Administration Review

This article discusses how the U.S. General Service Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service developed and sustained a framework to collect and transform data into reliable evidence to inform decision-making – that is, how it created an “evidence engine.”

Benchmarking Project Report 2025

School of Government, University of N. Carolina

The North Carolina Benchmarking Project was established in 1995 so that participating municipalities could compare service data and performance trends. In 2022, the Benchmarking Project relaunched as Benchmarking 2.0 with a new emphasis on collaboration and relationship-building. Benchmarking 2.0 offers revised framework metrics, streamlined data collection, an interactive online dashboard, and intensive in-person performance strategy sessions.