What About Performance?

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Michael R. Ford
November 4, 2024

I was reading a local municipal budget recently and was struck by the way in which it was presented. If all one cared about was the tax levy they would have been happy with the document. But if you wanted to know how expenditures had changed from last year you were out of luck. If you wanted specific revenue sources (aside from the property tax) you were out of luck. And forget about performance indicators.

I frequently preach that budgets are the contracts between government and the governed. The process and the documents themselves are how the public sees what their government is doing and whether they are doing it well. This particular budget communicated that the goal of government was merely to keep the property tax levy low.

I was similarly flummoxed by the first peek at Wisconsin’s state education budget proposal. There were plenty of important things highlighted, like student mental health and student nutrition, but discussion of student academic performance was notably absent. And it is not just in budgets, so many of our policy discussions at the local, state and federal level are focused on culture-war issues aimed at utilizing administrative capacity to secure and maintain political power rather than maximize government performance. In other words, we are entering dangerous ground where performance is equated with political winning as opposed to objective measures of success.

The current climate has me questioning another of my go to lines for MPA students: While there will always be disagreement about the appropriate size and scope of government, we can all agree that we want it to be effective within its scope. But what happens when the goal of government is not to be successful? There is a difference between wanting small government and wanting a failed government. A desire for small government can be attributed to economic preferences, disagreement over the appropriate sector in which services are provided, the desired size of the social safety net and more. 

The desire for failed government is, in my opinion, more difficult to understand. It is nothing new for politicians to rail against government during their campaigns, but again, there is something different about wanting to reform government and wanting to abandon it all together. I think of my own professional experience in education reform. School voucher policies were framed for decades as an education reform aimed at improving performance across sectors. Performance metrics like test scores and graduations were often baked into voucher policies so parents and policymakers could evaluate outcomes. Increasingly, however, voucher policies are framed as a cultural reform based on values rather than performance. To put it another way, there is evidence of a shift away from privatization as a government reform strategy to a government abandonment strategy.

I know I am not the first the point this out. Public Administration scholars have long written about the hollow state and how outsourcing and privatization can erode government capacity, which in turn erodes public trust in government. I personally approach the use of non-government providers to provide public services as a tool in the administrative toolbox. Like any tool, it only works when used correctly. But I am beginning to understand the hollow state critique that government capacity can be eroded to the point of no return by actors more interested in chaos than reform.

I know there will always be critique of government, some warranted, and some not. But, I do think those of us who train administrative leaders, or are administrative leaders, can recommit to the value of performance as a way to combat unwarranted critiques. Going back to my education example, there is not perfect measure of a school’s success. Student test scores, graduation rates and life-outcomes are all part of the equation. It is also true that different schools and districts may value different things. And that is ok. What matters is that school and district leaders are able to articulate how they are measuring performance and are able to set and communicate goals to their stakeholders. It will never be perfect, but it can be an accepted indicator everyone will understand.

The perfect place to set performance indicators and goals in a public organization is the budget. The budget can transmit the how, why and how well of every government program to internal (staff) and external (the public) audiences. Without a focus on performance secondary objectives, be they political or cultural, will take precedent.

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Author: Michael R. Ford is a professor of public administration at the University of Wisconsin  Oshkosh, where he teaches graduate courses in budgeting and research methods. He frequently publishes on the topics of public and nonprofit board governance, accountability and school choice. He is a former member of the Oshkosh, WI Common Council.

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