Two prior grants to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) through its parent body, the Financial Accounting Foundation, have supported staff work on performance measurement and reporting. This final grant will continue the work and lead to a staff recommendation to the GASB Board about whether and when to add to its active agenda a project to establish guidelines or standards for reporting performance information as part of external financial reporting. These guidelines would not mandate the use of performance measurement, but would specify how performance measurement should be reported by those jurisdictions that choose to make such reports. If approved, such GASB guidelines would be a substantial stimulus to making widespread the use and public reporting of measures of municipal government performance. Over the next two and a half years, the GASB staff will prepare training modules on the use of the suggested criteria, a guide to assist citizens in using performance reports, and an implementation guide to help those working to use the suggested criteria. Presentations will be made at conferences and to regional associations, citizen groups, and governmental entities on how to use the suggested criteria. Staff will conduct discussion groups with citizens and elected officials in jurisdictions that have issued reports using these criteria. At least 30 state and local governments interested in using the criteria will be assisted, articles on the suggested criteria will be prepared for key publications, and quarterly assessments of the results of experimentation with the criteria will be produced. Based on feedback from governments and citizens using the suggested criteria, a revised set of suggested criteria will be prepared by June 2006. By the end of that year, a recommendation from the staff will go to the GASB Board. Project Director: Wilson Campbell, Project Manager, Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

Past Foundation grants to the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) have supported performance measurement and reporting work by its Straphangers Campaign, focused on public transportation in New York City. The Campaign has produced annual reports on the state of New York’s subways and buses and issued reports on subway car cleanliness and announcements, and subway payphones. These reports have received extensive attention from the print and broadcast media of New York City. The Campaign has an active website and more than 200,000 comments have been placed on its online complaint board. The Straphangers continue to be the country’s leader in citizen-based performance measurement and reporting about public transportation. They helped launch the Campaign for Better Transit in Chicago and continue to provide technical assistance. They played an instrumental role in convincing the Metropolitan Transit Authority to hire a consultant to study Rapid Bus Transit options for New York based on experience elsewhere and successfully promoted increased transparency and accountability of the MTA. The current final grant funds three additional years of work by the NYPIRG. Project Director: Gene Russianoff, Staff Attorney.

A 2001 grant to Rutgers funded a project at its National Center for Public Productivity (NCPP) to create, disseminate, and promote curricular material related to citizen-based performance measurement of local services. By the spring of 2003, the Graduate Department of Public Administration at Rutgers-Newark had incorporated the new material into 24 MPA and doctoral courses. By that autumn, the curricular material was also being used in similar graduate programs in 38 other universities. Use continues to increase each year. The new curricular material has also been presented and disseminated in training courses offered by professional organizations. The Rutgers team, believing that presenting the materials online would be a more effective means of reaching the target audience, created a set of 15 online modules offered initially in November 2002. These too have seen growing use. The current grant will enable NCPP to support and promote the online certificate program over a period of three years. The long-term plan anticipates growth each year until 1300 registrations are obtained in 2006-07. With these numbers and assuming modules are priced competitively with comparable professional training opportunities, the certificate program is expected to be self-sustaining. Project Director: Marc Holzer, Chair, Graduate Program in Public Administration.

The following seven grants, funded from an appropriation approved by the Board of Trustees, support small projects in the Foundation’s program on citizen-based performance assessment of municipal governments.

To enable the completion and piloting of a database for the Ombudsman Unit of the Office of the Public Advocate. Project Director: Betsy Gotbaum, Public Advocate.

To promote the work of the Connecticut Policy and Economic Council on performance measurement and direct service request. Project Director: Tim Schlitzer, President.

To enable New Yorkers for Parks to develop and institutionalize a community report card for neighborhood parks in New York City. Project Director: Maura Lout, Research Director.

Partial support for an exhibition highlighting the past 25 years of the Straphangars campaign in New York City. Project Director: Gene Russianoff, Staff Attorney.

To enable the Governmental and Nonprofit Assistance Center of Radford University to identify performance measures that would provide meaningful comparisons among Virginia’s local and county governments and to make them available on the Center’s website. Project Director: Professor Bruce W. Chase, Department of Accounting, Finance, and Business Law.

For a study of performance measurement by special districts and of citizen involvement therein. Project Director: Assistant Professor Kimberley R. Isett, George Bush School of Government and Public Service.

To fund a meeting of Sloan Foundation grantees on the subject of the sustainability of performance measurement projects. Project Director: Robert Schaefer, Executive Director.