Iowa

Officials in Iowa government are eager to tell you that they are devoted to a culture of performance measurement and citizen involvement. They’re not just kidding around. A quick look at the state Web site provides ample evidence.

Iowa’s is far from the most technically impressive Web site in state government — many routine citizen transactions still can’t be performed electronically — but it is almost certainly the most candid. Under a heading labeled “Results Iowa,” you will quickly find out about the impact of programs all across the spectrum of state government. The site shows performance measures arranged according to their place in the state’s strategic agenda, as well as by individual department.

On the positive side, you will learn that some 60 percent of Iowa citizens now file income tax returns electronically, and that the Department for the Blind is better at finding jobs for clients than any agency of its kind in the country. But you will get some of the bad news as well. Enrollments are dropping at the public universities, for example. Why? Apparently recent tuition increases have had the effect that many feared. Even the governor’s introductory letter — which on many state Web sites is a piece of useless puffery — makes a serious effort to deal with areas where better performance is needed.

Money B+ Long-Term Outlook Budget Process Structural Balance Contracting/Purchasing Financial Controls/Reporting People B Strategic Workforce Planning Hiring Retaining Employees Training and Development Managing Employee Performance Infrastructure B Capital Planning Project Monitoring Maintenance Internal Coordination Intergovernmental Coordination Information B Strategic Direction Budgeting for Performance Managing for Performance Program Evaluation Electronic Government • Population (rank): 2,926,324 (30) • Average per capita income (rank):    $29,043 (33) • Total state spending (rank):    $12,720,752,000 (31) • Spending per capita (rank):    $4,333 (28) • Governor: Tom Vilsack (D) • First elected: 11/1998 • Senate: 50 members: 25 D, 25 R • Term Limits: None • House: 100 members: 49 D, 51 R • Term Limits: None

Iowa doesn’t just believe its citizens can handle the truth — it’s committed to hearing more of the truth from them. Individuals and groups with defined interests have myriad opportunities to participate in state government, from the increasingly popular hearings held by the governor, to the electronic “suggestion box” included as part of Results Iowa. The individual agencies think this way, too: The Department of Transportation, for example, invites ongoing input from its private contractors through a Contractors Joint Policy Council.

Governor Tom Vilsack has gone so far as to endorse a set of guidelines for state financial management drafted by the Iowa Taxpayers Association, a nonpartisan group whose board of directors includes representatives from a wide swath of business interests. That’s not a form of buy-in you are likely to encounter in many other states.

When Iowa was faced with mid-year budget cuts in 2001, citizens were given the opportunity to make suggestions via the Internet as to how they thought the budget should be balanced. Analysts looked at every suggestion and a few led to new efforts, including an early retirement incentive program and a reorganization of Personnel, Accounting and Information Technology functions into a single administrative agency.

Of course, all the information in the world doesn’t necessarily solve problems. Iowa has an enviable ability, for example, to track the physical needs of its roads and buildings. But the state has put more emphasis on new projects in recent years, while it has close to a billion dollars in unmet transportation maintenance needs as well as another half-billion in deferred building maintenance.

All agencies are in cutback mode. The governor has imposed across-the-board budget reductions twice in the past four years; the first was for more than 4 percent and the second one 2.2 percent. The state has already initiated two early retirement programs, which probably have achieved as much as they are likely to achieve and can’t be productively repeated. So more creative ways to deal with fiscal problems need to be found.

To do that in Iowa’s trademark citizen-friendly way, the executive and legislative leadership are trying out a new budgeting initiative that they call “Purchasing Results.” The idea is to focus on the outcomes valued most by Iowa’s citizens and then tack spending toward those goals. Instead of building off what the state did the year before and calculating how much it would cost to reproduce that result again, the authors of this experiment want to ask how much of each desired result can be purchased with the resources available.

For additional data and analysis, go to: http://results.gpponline.org/iowa

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