2019 State Standard of Excellence

As part of the Arizona Management System, Arizona’s Government Transformation Office implemented an enterprise approach to strategic planning and performance reporting across cabinet agencies, including the My Agency Scorecard application. The more than 700 metrics reported through this application cover numerous aspects of state government and power executive-level dashboards that inform strategy, operations, and budgeting activities.

A 2013 Colorado law required all Colorado state agencies to submit annual performance reports to the Colorado state legislature which must include: (1) performance measures for the major functions of the department; (2) performance goals for at least the subsequent three years; (3) a description of the strategies necessary to achieve those goals; and (4) a summary of the department’s most recent performance evaluation.

The Colorado Department of Human Services C-Stat performance management framework is designed to improve the delivery of food and cash assistance program benefits. The Department holds weekly performance meetings, releases quarterly performance reports, and summarizes data on county level dashboard. A peer exchange program allows counties to learn from each other and produces broader learnings for the field, including case studies.

A 2014 Florida law created the Florida Department of Children and Families child welfare results-oriented accountability program that monitors data from service providers and other entities to report progress via a public child welfare performance dashboard. In addition, the Department publishes interactive scorecards with detailed information on program performance for: community based care, federal child welfare indicators, child protective investigations, adult protective services, and mental health treatment facilities.

The Illinois Budgeting for Results Commission is the state’s performance-based budgeting initiative. The Commission annual report summarizes the state’s performance improvement efforts across seven statewide results areas: education, economic development, public safety, human services, healthcare, environment and culture, and government services.

As required by a 2013 Maryland law, the Maryland Department of Budget and Management’s Managing for Results initiative publishes annual performance reports as part of the state’s budget process. These reports track agencies’ key goals, objectives, and performance measures. As part of these efforts, the Governor’s Office of Performance Improvement, established by a 2015 Executive Order, assists “agencies with measuring and managing performance information.” Further, the Maryland Children’s Cabinet has a Child Welfare Scorecard, which tracks indicators for eight statewide child welfare goals.

Since 2014, Minnesota has maintained a dashboard featuring 40 key indicators in the state’s eight key priority areas. Each indicator has a status (good, okay, or poor according to specific criteria); indicators can be compared to the performance of other states and many are disaggregated by race, income, or geography. The Minnesota Management and Budget Office uses the dashboard to convene state agencies for “state-stat” meetings to monitor performance and identify opportunities to enhance collaboration.

The Mississippi Department of Education’s Mississippi Succeeds Report Card publicly tracks the state’s progress towards its goals for improving student outcomes as outlined in the State’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) implementation plan.

The Missouri Chief Operating Officer (COO), a position established in 2017, works with all state departments to define strategic priorities and achieve results. Departments represent their priorities and main strategic initiatives on placemats that are shared throughout the organization and with the public. All Missouri departments publish annual performance data on core programs as part of the annual budget process. Each department also does a monthly or quarterly update to track the status of its strategic initiatives and organizational performance; these dashboards are reviewed monthly by the COO and the deputies from each department.

A 1999 New Mexico law required all state agencies to submit annual performance-based budget requests which include: (1) the outputs and outcomes for each program; (2) performance measures and targets for each program; and (3) an evaluation of each program’s performance. This information is released annually in the state’s policy and fiscal analysis, which includes individual agency performance reports and information on the cost effectiveness of different programs.

A 2016 Oregon law required all state agencies to develop and use performance measures. Each state agency submits to the Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office an Annual Performance Progress Report detailing the agency’s programmatic outcomes, which are reviewed during the state’s budget process.

Tennessee’s data and performance website, Transparent TN, has statewide performance dashboards with specific sub-goals, targets, and performance data in the areas of the state’s strategic priorities. These priorities are connected to each cabinet-level agency’s operational and strategic plan. The site also includes state fiscal data as well as OpenMaps, which showcases key metrics.