Measuring Performance for New Programs


For bills that create a new program or significantly expand an existing program, lawmakers should ask the following questions to improve accountability:

1. What are the goals of this investment? What is it intended to achieve?

2. What other entities or levels of government address similar goals? How will new efforts be coordinated?

3. What new or additional outcomes, products, and deliverables will the investment achieve? If this is an expansion of an existing effort, what outcomes, products and deliverables has it already achieved?

4. How will one know the investment is paying off? How will one know it has succeeded?

5. Who might benefit from the investment? Who might be negatively impacted?

6. What could be unintended consequences of the investment, both positive and negative?