Executive Budget Act
SB 21: The Key to Alaska's Fiscal Fitness and Performance
Strategic planning, budgeting, execution and reporting to help Alaska's state government address longstanding performance and management problems.
Effective performance management improves outcomes and helps Alaskans receive value from their government
Key Points
Statewide priorities
Requires the Governor to set and publicize 3-6 broad statewide priorities. These will guide the development of agency strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual financial plans.
Strategic Plans
This bill requires each department/agency in the executive branch to write 4-year strategic plans including a mission statement, 3-6 goals, SMART objectives related to each goal, and other contextual information. Currently Alaska produces a 10-year plan which can be important, but is not useful without more detailed direction.
PErformance Plans
This bill requires each department/agency to produce annual performance plans. These plans will describe the program structure, define each program, identify performance measures, and identify historical information and upcoming targets for performance.
Financial Plans
This bill requires each department/agency to produce annual financial plans. These plans will provide historical revenue and expenditure information for each program, the requested budget, total positions, and more. This ideally should be the last step in the planning process. Tying this to the other plans listed above is a major key in the structure this bill sets forth.
Transparency and Reporting
All plans and performance reports are required to be posted on a public website. Quarterly reporting is required only on the progress towards identified performance targets. Other moving bills I've cosponsored such as SB 25/HB 86 which would make financial information publicly available
Other
This bill also touches on moving responsibility for goal, objective, and performance measure setting, capital project planning, performance audits, and more!
Below is a graphic depicting the hierarchy of planning. This hierarchy starts with the governor declaring their statewide priorities (top of the pyramid). These priorities are carried out by departments with various mission statements in areas necessary to progress each priority. Each department includes mission statements, department-wide goals, and division-specific ‘SMART’ objectives that align with the statewide priorities in their 4-year strategic plans. These strategic plans guide annual, department level performance and financial plans which include program, performance, and budget history and information.
Why Is This Necessary?
- Existing Performance Management Framework is an additional administrative burden with no realized benefit
- Alaska’s management of programs and projects has not been as strong as citizens expect from their government
- Alaska consistently scores lower than other states in numerous key metrics
- Alaska has fragments of an appropriate enterprise-scale management system, but not something that cohesively blends operational, performance, and quality management
- This proposal is the key to driving a higher level of performance while successfully improving Alaska’s overall cost/benefit ratio
Supporting Documents
Click on each icon or title to view the document!
The official text of the bill which proposes changes to AS 37.07, the Executive Budget Act
One-page summarizing the intent of the proposal and why I believe this is necessary.
A summary of what would be included in each planning document (Strategic, Performance, Financial)
This document breaks down each individual change included in each section of SB 21
The most current slideshow
A history of proposed changes to the EBA. Useful for insight into how the EBA became what it is today and the ideas others have put forth.
Committee Meetings / Bill Hearings
3/8/2022: House Ways & Means Committee
Summary: This is an introductory hearing for HB 376. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) described the current state of operations, then I presented the sponsor statement, and my staff presented the slideshow and bill sectional. After that we explored some committee questions
Duration: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Meeting Link: http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Meeting…
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