In 2016, the Legislature passed a law requiring a performance-based budget system. The system was supposed to be implemented in 3 phases--a program inventory (due January 9, 2017), an integrated budget fiscal process (due January 6, 2018), and a performance-based budget system (due January 14, 2019). We reviewed whether the system was adequately implemented as outlined in state law, and whether state agencies provided complete, accurate, and reliable information. 

For the first question, we found the Division of the Budget generally met the basic requirements in state law. But the performance-based budget system doesn’t seem to have changed the way the state makes budgeting decisions. That’s partly because statute is very general and allows a lot of discretion.

For the second question, we found that most of the 79 state agencies we reviewed submitted the required information to Budget. We evaluated the quality of the program inventories and performance measures that 7 of those agencies provided. 5 of the 7 agencies’ program inventories didn’t include all required information. 1 agency only had output measures (no outcome measures). And 3 agencies’ performance measures had significant accuracy or reliability issues.