Agencies show marked improvement on OMB scorecard

The Office of Management and Budget's predications of significant agency progress in the five areas of the President's Management Agenda came strikingly true in the latest report card.

In the midyear evaluation released today, OMB awarded agencies 19 new green scores, including three in the e-government category. Overall, OMB has given out 27 green scores.

OMB gives agencies scores of green, yellow or red for their efforts to meet the goals of the five agenda items, which are budget and performance integration, competitive sourcing, e-government, financial performance and human capital management.

Green means an agency has met all the standards for success, yellow means it has met some but not all and red means there are serious problems. OMB grades each agency on its overall status and on its progress toward implementing the agenda items.

Overall, the scorecard went from majority red and yellow grades to majority yellow and green scores, which is what OMB officials predicted it would look like by the end of President Bush's fourth year in office.

Along with the 27 green scores, the administration handed out 54 yellow and 49 red scores. In March, officials awarded 61 red, 57 yellow and 12 green scores.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration and the Transportation Department moved to green from yellow in e-government, joining the National Science Foundation and the Office of Personnel Management as the only agencies to reach e-government success.

Overall, 17 of 27 agencies received green or yellow scores, up from 15 in March, and only nine agencies received red grades, down from 11 earlier this year.

On the progress score, the Homeland Security Department dropped to red from yellow, while four other agencies improved their progress scores to green.

Transportation received four green scores in all categories but financial performance?where OMB gave the agency a red score. Energy, OPM and the Social Security Administration earned a total of three green scores, while NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Labor Department and EPA garnered two greens.

Agencies are finding the most success in the human capital category, where seven agencies received top grades. In each of the other areas, agencies received five green scores.

The Smithsonian Institution, the Army Corp of Engineers and the departments of Homeland Security and Housing and Urban Development have made little progress on the agenda, with at least four red scores.