Office of Management and Budget

Changes Resulting From the OMB 2000 Reorganization Gao ID: GGD/AIMD-96-50 December 29, 1995

This report describes the changes that have resulted from OMB 2000--a major reorganization and process change at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that was announced in 1994 as part of the National Performance Review. The main goal of OMB 2000 was to integrate OMB;s budget analysis, management review, and policy development roles under a new structure to improve the decisionmaking process and oversight of executive branch operations. GAO describes (1) the changes in OMB's organizational structure, responsibilities, and staffing as a result of OMB 2000; (2) changes to OMB's three statutory offices; (3) changes in the attention OMB gave to management issues in the budget formulation process before and after OMB 2000; and (4) the way OMB planned to evaluate OMB 2000.

GAO found that: (1) OMB 2000 created a new organizational structure for OMB by reorganizing and replacing former budget program areas with resource management offices (RMO) staffed by employees reassigned to new program examiner positions; (2) OMB shifted specific oversight responsibilities of the statutory offices to RMO, while responsibilities for governmentwide management policies remained in the statutory offices; (3) OMB total staffing allocation remained the same, despite RMO having about 26 percent more staff than previously budgeted; (4) the implementation of OMB 2000 resulted in greater attention to agency management issues in the budget process; (5) while some OMB staff were concerned about their ability to perform their expanded responsibilities, OMB staff generally had a positive view of OMB 2000; and (6) although OMB initially planned to evaluate OMB 2000 as a distinct management initiative, it plans a broader assessment of its overall effectiveness in formulating and implementing management policies for the government.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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