In yet another example of the value of collaboration over compliance the Commonwealth of Virginia was ranked alongside the States of Washington and Utah as a top performer in the PEW Center’s Grading the States 2008 report.
According to the PEW organization’s web site the report, which is designed to assess the “quality of management in the 50 states,” focuses on four key areas of government practice.
The four areas that are assessed include:
Money
How states manage fiscal resources, including budgeting, forecasting, accounting and financial reporting, procurement, contracting, investments, and debt.
People
What states are doing to recruit and retain strong professionals and offering development and recognition for top-level service.
Infrastructure
How states maintain, improve and plan for future physical infrastructure needs, including roads, bridges and buildings.
Information
How effectively states apply data and technology to measure the effectiveness of services, make decisions and communicate with the public.
Editor’s Note: Procurement Insights has contacted the PEW Group with an offer to fund a similar study on the Federal Government of Canada’s operations. I will keep you posted on the specific details as they develop.
In the meantime, over the next week I will be writing a series of posts on each of the top ranking states starting today with the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Commonwealth of Virginia (Score: A-)
What immediately jumped off the scoring page for the Commonwealth of Virginia was the statement that “Managing a state is just too complicated to yield to one-size-fits-all equations.”
With Contracting and Purchasing being designated as an area of strength, this third party assessment provided further confirmation of the views expressed in last year’s Yes Virginia series.
In fact, as one senior Commonwealth official put it, eVA was “cited as one of the big positives.”
Referenced as “another big cost saver,” eVA the report stated is the “first state procurement system anywhere that integrates with that of the Federal General Services Administration’s (GSA), allowing it (being Virginia) to easily access federal contract discounts.”
This is an important element of the eVA Program as it reflects a similar approach to that of the State of North Carolina’s At Your Service initiative (although not in terms of the Federal tie-in). Specifically, North Carolina came to the conclusion that their centrally managed program may not necessarily reflect the best interests of all stakeholders. As a result, the State entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in November of 2004 with its higher education institutions, granting procurement autonomy with the understanding that both entities would collaborate (there’s that word again) to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.
Under the terms of the MOU agreement, the institutions were empowered with the ability to procure goods and services through their own means, with the provision that they would reference the State’s negotiated contracts to verify that a best value decision was in fact being made. In those instances where the institutions could procure a good or service at a better value than what was available through the State’s contract, they could do so provided that the information was shared with the State. This not only established effective channels of communication, it ensured that everyone was working toward a common and collective good.
Now Virginia’s level of success did not happen by accident, nor did it occur as a natural extension of an over-arching shared services strategy. In fact the term “shared services” does not appear anywhere in this report or for that matter in the reports of the other two leading states.
The PEW Report did however note that what made Virginia’s showing so impressive is that the Commonwealth had avoided “formulas” and had instead focused on the “harder work of asking why goals and targets weren’t being met.” Based on the understanding that was gained through this collaborative process, Virginia then actively sought “to address the underlying problems.”
Another finding that is also worth noting is that besides tracking agency goals and management benchmarks, the Commonwealth’s performance-accountability system (Virginia Performs) also measured “societal outcomes.” This latter area of focus clearly demonstrated an ability by senior bureaucrats to see beyond the narrow realm of political expediency and personal empire building. As a result, the Commonwealth was in a better position to understand the impact of government policy and action on the community as a whole.
The commitment to the collective good of all stakeholders was previously reflected in the Commonwealth’s decision to shelf a proposed strategy to introduce digital signatures into the procurement process due to the potential “negative effects” it would likely have had on the SME/HUB supply base. (Note: the digital signature story was referenced in the October 23, 2007 PI Post Yes Virginia Revisited! Why some e-procurement initiatives succeed and other don’t. This post also appeared in my column Paradigm Shift in the November/December 2007 issue of Summit Magazine under the heading Yes Virginia! e-procurement that works. The URL links to both articles appear at the end of this post.)
Certainly the fact that the Commonwealth is facing a reduction in revenues of $980 million in 2008 was a motivating factor in assessing what will and will not work. However, the report adeptly noted that “Good performance data can make otherwise clumsy cuts more precise,” while simultaneously ensuring that related reductions do not “frustrate state goals.”
Tangible Data Versus Cryptic References to Nebulous Outcomes
The fact that Virginia not only tracked but was willing to openly share key performance data also speaks to the collaborative element within the Virginian hierarchy.
For example, the PEW Report cited the dramatic improvement in the Department of Transportation’s (VDOT) on-time completion of projects. In 2003 only 27% of all VDOT projects came in on time.
Crediting the VDOT Dashboard which tracks seven key elements of transportation management (including construction), the on-time completion rate rose to an outstanding 87% in 2008.
Even though the Commonwealth’s information technology “isn’t perfect,” (according to David Von Moll, Virginia’s Comptroller, the financial information system isn’t what he would call “functionally rich”) the commitment to capture, analyze and share important data creates an atmosphere of understanding. This in turn helps stakeholders to buy into the mutual goals that are defined by an organization’s diverse operations.
Despite a tight (some would say prohibitive) budget, the Commonwealth was still able to partner with Northrop Grumman. The Grumman relationship led to an “infusion of expertise and cash” enabling Virginia to replace the current system “without raising the overall IT budget.”
The PEW Report touched on other areas of the Commonwealth’s operations including deferred maintenance relative to Virginia’s more than 10,000 buildings, and the ongoing effort to “tweak” its revenue code.
At the end of the day, whether out of financial necessity or insightful leadership (likely a combination of both), Virginia is well deserving of its A- grade and a ranking as a public sector leader.
Tomorrow’s Post: Washington State
In 2005 I prepared a detailed analysis of the University of Washington’s procurement practice. Through this undertaking, which included a comprehensive assessment of the University’s interaction with the State, I was able to closely examine the principles upon which the government’s policies were based.
I am certain that you will find the results of my analyses interesting in the context of the 2008 PEW Report.
URL Links:
Yes Virginia Revisited! Why some e-procurement initiatives succeed and others don’t! *(A Summit Simulpost) –https://procureinsights.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/yes-virginia-revisited-why-some-e-procurement-initiatives-succeed-and-others-don%e2%80%99t-a-summit-simulpost/
Yes Virginia! e-procurement that works! (Paradigm Shift Column) – http://www.summitconnects.com/Articles_Columns/PDF_Documents/w10_7_07.pdf
Procurement Insights 
Posted on March 4, 2008
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