PMA Scorecard Sees One Department Green, Another Red

One Department has improved its Current Status, while another has taken a step backward, in the most recent President's Management Agenda (PMA) Program Initiative Scorecard, issued September 30, 2006.

The PMA Program Scorecard tracks the Current Status and Progress in Implementing of a number of program initiatives by the following Departments and agencies:

• Agriculture
• Defense
• Energy
• HHS
• DHS
• Interior
• Justice
• Labor
• State
• DOT
• VA
• AID
• Corps
• GSA
• NASA

According to the September 30 update, the Department of Energy (DOE) improved its Current Status ranking from "Yellow" to "Green." The Department of Agriculture was downgraded in its Current Status from "Yellow" to "Red" in the same update. In addition to DOE, the Department of State, the Veterans Administration, GSA and NASA have achieved "Green" Current Status ranking. All other affected agencies remain at "yellow," with the exception of the Department of Agriculture.

Federal real property professionals understand what's required to upgrade their Current Status PMA ranking. In a recent survey jointly authored by VISTA and the Federal Real Property Association (FRPA), several anonymous Department representatives commented on the work left to do. Comments included:

• "We haven't yet demonstrated that the [Asset Management Plan] is used in our day-to-day facilities decisions, which is required to rand Green for status."
• "We are making good progress. Need to do more to demonstrate to OMB that we should be Green on status."

Danny Werfel, deputy controller of the Office of Management and Budget, believes that Departments are "at a crossroads," according to an article by Aimee Curl in the October 19, 2006 issue of Federal Times (http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2297505). At the FRPA professional conference in October, Werfel applauded agencies for collecting real property data, but equated the ongoing real property effort to constructing a house.

"The foundation has been built," Werfel told Federal Times. "Now we have to see what the house is going to look like."

"What (inventory) information won't tell you is how that asset is performing. Is it surplus or not? That's where performance measures come in," Werfel was quoted as saying.

The most recent PMA scorecard may be downloaded at http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/agenda/index.html. Findings from the recent FRPA/VISTA real property compliance survey may be downloaded as a White Paper at http://www.vistatsi.com/news_whitepapers.html.