Overview
One of the priorities of the Comptroller's Office is to improve the accountability of state governmental agencies to the public they serve. That involves not only making sure that state resources are spent for the proper purposes, but also reporting on the efficiency, effectiveness, and outcomes of government programs. To address the latter, the Comptroller launched the Public Accountability Project through which state agencies annually report on their performance in carrying out their statutory missions.
Traditional governmental financial reporting and budgeting are designed to report to the public on how financial resources are acquired and used by governments, and to ensure that resources made available to state agencies are used in accordance with enacted laws. Traditional reporting addresses questions such as: How much revenue was received and how much was spent? How many people were employed by state government, or how much was spent for telecommunications? How much was spent on education, or how many miles of highways were constructed? From an auditing perspective, were the expenditures made in accordance with state law, and are the dollar amounts reported accurately?
Missing from the traditional financial reports, however, is a review of how well state agencies use their resources to provide the programs and services established in the laws and policies set by elected officials. What, in the broadest sense, did taxpayers get for the tax dollars spent? Are resources used effectively? Are children well schooled? Are highways safe and efficient? Is the environment being kept clean?
Service Efforts and Accomplishments
One method for answering such questions is Service Efforts and Accomplishments (SEA) reporting as advocated by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), the agency designated to set standards for financial reporting by state and local governments. Recognizing the incompleteness of traditional financial reporting, the GASB proposed an initiative to stimulate SEA reporting by state and local governments. The goal of SEA reporting is to improve financial reports by linking information on the performance of government programs with the usual financial data. SEA reporting examines not only the financial resources allocated to programs, but also the programs' missions, goals and objectives – plus quantifiable measurements of whether the programs have accomplished those goals and objectives.
SEA reporting is in its experimental stages and the GASB is monitoring the experimentation by governments under their purview before issuing standards. At present, no generally accepted standards have been set for performance measures. However, Illinois has been designated (and now re-designated) by the GASB as an official “experimentation site” for SEA reporting.
Current Status of the Public Accountability Report
Over the past few years the scope of the project has increased from a total of 19 state agencies in the fiscal year 1999 report to 69 agencies in the fiscal year 2006 report. This selection of agencies accounted for a significant part ($44.6 billion or 89.6%) of the $49.8 billion in appropriated expenditures made during fiscal year 2006.
The information in the annual reports is compiled and reported by the state agencies using a format established by the Comptroller's Office. Overall, agencies provide indicator data for a four-year period, three years of prior year actuals and one year of current year targets. For example, the fiscal year 2006 report includes actual program expenditures for fiscal years 2004, 2005 and 2006, and estimated or targeted expenditures for fiscal year 2007.