Excerpt
Success, not just beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Our perception of the success of government conservation programs depends upon trust-that government managers execute these programs in the public interest. But trust alone has its limits. We also want proof that the programs actually address the problems for which they were conceived. To this end, we demand accountability.
Accountability, in turn, requires data.
Much has been made, in light of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, of corporate accountability to the stakeholder, i.e., the owner of the shares in the public corporation; government accountability follows the same concepts. For the corporate sector, verification of performance occurs, at least in theory, through monitoring by disinterested observers or accounting firms. For government programs, it is government entities, such as the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that are separate from those that deliver services. With the increasing trend towards the privatization in the delivery of programs and the growth of dollars supporting them, the need for accountability at all levels becomes more urgent.
The enactment of the federal Government Performance and Review Act (GPRA) gave increased impetus to improving the accountability of government …
Footnotes
Andrew P. Manale is is a senior program analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., is on detail to the University of North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
- Copyright 2003 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.