1. Language Discipline |
10 Total |
a. Have the policy offices or state agencies adopted a common language using the Tool for Choosing a Common Language or some other method? Does this common language allow you to clearly distinguish population and performance accountability |
7 |
|
b. Can you crosswalk your language usage to that of other partners such as the legislature, local government, private organizations or foundations? |
3 |
|
2. Population Accountability |
30 Total |
a. Have the policy offices or state agencies identified one or more population level results or conditions of well-being stated in plain language to which your policies contribute? |
5 |
|
b. Have you identified the three to five most important indicators for each of these results? |
5 |
|
c. Have you created a baseline with history and a forecast for each of these measures? |
5 |
|
d. Have you analyzed the story behind these baselines? |
5 |
|
e. Do you have a written analysis of what it would take to turn these conditions around at the national, state, county, city or community level? |
5 |
|
f. Have you articulated the role the policy offices or state agencies play in such a strategy? |
5 |
|
3. Performance Accountability |
45 Total |
a. Have the policy offices or state agencies established the three to five most important performance measures for what you do, using the performance accountability categories How much did we do? How well did we do it? Is anyone better off? |
5 |
|
b. Have you created a baseline with history and a forecast for each of these measures? |
5 |
|
c. Do you track these measures on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis? |
10 |
|
d. Do you periodically review how the policy offices or state agencies are doing on these measures and develop action plans to do better using the performance accountability seven questions? |
10 |
|
e. Have you adapted the policy offices or state agencies’ management, budget, strategic planning, grant application and progress-reporting forms and formats to reflect systematic thinking about their contribution to population conditions and their performance? |
5 |
|
f. Are the population and performance baseline curves you are trying to turn displayed prominently as one or more charts on the wall? |
5 |
|
g. Have you identified an in-house expert to train and coach the staff of all policy offices or state agencies in this work? |
5 |
|
4. Bottom line quality of service |
15 Total |
a. Considering case mix difficulty, are you doing well or poorly on the most important Is-Anyone-Better-Off? measures compared to others? (Others = comparable states, national benchmarks or reasonable targets or standards) |
5 |
|
b. How are you doing on the most important How-well-did-we-do-it? measures compared to others? (Others = comparable states, national benchmarks, or reasonable targets or standards) |
5 |
|
c. Have you turned any curves? |
5 |
|
5. Bonuses and Penalties |
|
a. Research and Evaluation Bonus: Do you have recent (i.e. less than three to five years old) research or evaluation evidence that show your policies and programs cause improvement in the lives of children and/or families as shown by Is-Anyone-Better-Off? measures? |
Yes= +10 No = 0 |
|
b. Skimming Penalty: Is there any evidence that the policy offices or state agencies are skimming easy customers to increase success rates on Is-Anyone-Better-Off? measures? |
Yes = 0 No = -10 |
|
c. Unit Cost Penalty: Given the intensity of your services are your unit costs per customer in line with other states’ policies or programs? |
Yes = 0 No = -10 |
|
Total |
|
|
(adapted from the Institute of Fiscal Policies Studies, Mark Freidman, www.raguide.org) |