American Council on Intergovernmental Relations: Federalism Rate of Return Project

Federalism Rate of Return Project

The U.S. Federal government is supposed to achieve national objectives. Yet it is only one layer of government in a multilayered and decentralized federal system. While the passage of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and other initiatives has increased the evaluation of single agency and even interagency performance within the federal government, there has been relatively little focus on measuring nationwide program outcomes, especially taking into account the involvement of all the state, local, nonprofit and private partners in most such programs. In other words, Federal performance and accountability is not necessarily the same as national performance and accountability, particularly given the intergovernmental nature of so many federal programs.

This project looks at approaches to measuring the “rate of return” to American federalism. Measures to be examined will include, but not be limited to:

Fiscal federalism metrics (e.g. intergovernmental and regional program revenues compared to expenditures, fiscal capacity, etc.);
Project outcome measures as related to levels of intergovernmental and public-private decentralization;
Facility condition and assessment measures correlated with primary management and investment responsibilities by level and entity of government or private/public sector entity;
Equity measures that examine which groups and regions get the benefits of programs and which pay for those benefits.

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CAMERON GORDON
Executive Director
American Council on Intergovernmental Relations