Overview of the Mississippi
Legislature’s Efforts to Revitalize
Performance Budgeting
June 11, 2015
1994: Mississippi Performance
Budget and Strategic Planning Act
• Purpose: to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of state government by changing
the state’s budgetary process:
– From line-item budgeting by major object of
expenditure; e.g., salaries, travel, contractual
services
– To budgeting based on programs and
performance
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The Act required:
• Inclusion of program-based performance
data and targets in agency appropriations
bills
• Annual submission of agency five-year
strategic plans to LBO and DFA for their
review
• Annual reporting of evaluation of agency
program performance data to LBC
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20 years later… Act not working as
intended
• Agencies:
– focused their performance measures on outputs
(activities done) rather than outcomes (results
achieved)
– developed their strategic plans to comply with
letter of the law, not to drive their performance
• Legislature having difficulty using the
planning and performance information to
make appropriations decisions
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2013: Factors influencing Move to
Revitalize Performance Budgeting
• Increasing fiscal and political pressure to make
state government work more efficiently and
effectively
• Improved software and technology allows for
collection and analysis of large datasets
• a new analytic framework for making budgetary
and policy decisions: the Pew-MacArthur
Results First Initiative
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3 Key Components of Revitalization
Effort
1. Development of statewide strategic plan
2. Development of a comprehensive inventory of
state agency programs
3. Implementation of Pew-MacArthur Results First
Initiative
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Development of Statewide
Strategic Plan
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Purpose of Developing a Statewide
Strategic Plan
• Help the Legislature and agency staff to target state
government resources and efforts toward achieving
priority outcomes
• Provide the data to show whether long-term and
short-term performance on each priority outcome is
improving, maintaining, or worsening
• Provide the basis for developing appropriate
responses to long-term negative trends in
performance
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Framework for Development of Mississippi’s
Statewide Strategic Plan
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Development of Statewide
Elements of State’s Strategic Plan
• Legislative leadership developed the statewide
goals and benchmarks by holding focus groups
with agency heads in each of 8 key policy areas to
identify:
–
–
–
–
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
• Legislative staff identified additional benchmarks
by reviewing performance measures tracked by
other performance budgeting states such as Texas
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Statewide Elements of State’s
Strategic Plan
• Resulted in 328 benchmarks in 8 key policy areas:
– Economic Development
– Education (K-12 public schools; higher education; 32
benchmarks for community and junior colleges)
– Public Safety and Order
– Health
– Human Services
– Natural Resources
– Infrastructure
– Government and Citizens
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Statewide Elements of State’s
Strategic Plan
• Public release on July 24, 2014:
– Building A Better Mississippi: The Statewide Strategic Plan
for Performance and Budgetary Success
• Available on the internet at www.:
– peer.state.ms.us: Special Reports
– lbo.ms.gov: Publications
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Development of Comprehensive
Inventory of State Agency
Programs
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Purpose of Comprehensive Program
Inventory
• Allows for identification of:
– total resources ($ and FTEs) committed to and results
achieved by each program of state government
– programs that are not necessary (do not serve a clear public
purpose), not working, or duplicative, resulting in:
• improvement,
• elimination, or
• resource transfer
– opportunities for shared services
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Legal Mandate for Comprehensive
Program Inventory
• MISS. CODE. ANN. Section 27-103-159 (HB 677,
2014 Session) requires:
– the development of a comprehensive inventory of state agency
programs/activities for use in budgeting process, beginning with
four pilot agencies: Corrections, Education, Health, and
Transportation
– Classification of the programs by research basis: evidence-based,
research-based, promising practice, no basis in research
– Identification of premise, goals, objectives, outputs, outcomes and
other performance measures, including cost-benefit analyses, for
each program in the inventory [Note: existing performance
measures already reported to external parties such as the federal
government will be used wherever possible]
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Scope of Comprehensive Inventory
• Includes all programs (including administrative
“programs”) provided by or funded through state
government:
– regardless of funding source (federal, state, self-generated)
– regardless of who carries out the program (state employees,
contractors)
– for education, includes all programs carried out by the SBCJC
as well as each of the state’s community and junior colleges
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Examples of Programs
• Intervention program (a set of activities designed to improve the
behavior or learning of program participants):
– I-BEST: Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, a program
that seeks to accelerate basic skills students’ transition into and
through a college-level occupational field of study
• Non-intervention Programs
– Prison security
– Food services
• Administrative programs:
– General accounting
– Compensation administration
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Other Program Inventory Tasks
• Programs in the inventory will be further classified by:
– whether they adhere to best practices of other states; industry
standards (for non-intervention programs)
– linkage to a statewide goal or benchmark
– broad program category; e.g., administrative, intervention, regulatory
• Program expenditure and performance data will be
collected in MAGIC
• The performance data will be audited for accuracy,
analyzed, and interpreted for use in budgetary decisionmaking
• Evidence-based intervention programs will be audited
for fidelity to program design
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Implementation of Pew-MacArthur
Results First Initiative
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Implementation of Pew-MacArthur
Results First Initiative
• Built upon an innovative cost-benefit analysis model
that helps states to invest in policies and programs
that are proven to work by identifying:
– Which programs are proven to work through evidencebased research and which do not
– The potential returns on investment of funding alternative
programs
– Ineffective programs whose resources could be redirected
to more effective programs
• Mississippi began Results First work in Adult
Corrections
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Evidence-Based Programs Ranked by Net Present Value
(Calculated Using Results First Model)
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