GASB project – General information

The GASB has been studying the use of performance management, measurement, and reporting by governments almost since its creation in 1984 by the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF). The GASB's focus with its Service Efforts and Accomplishments (SEA) project is only on one aspect of the performance management process—the external reporting of SEA performance information. The GASB is providing state and local governments with voluntary guidance that will assist them in effectively communicating SEA performance information to users. Such guidance will assist governments in their duty to be publicly accountable and in providing users with information to make informed economic, social and political decisions. In addition, the GASB is seeks to guide and educate the public about SEA reports.

For the most up-to-date information about the status of the GASB’s SEA project, visit the GASB’s SEA Project Page.

In 1997, the Sloan Foundation awarded the GASB with a grant to further SEA research, to address developmental needs for performance measurement, and to further encourage reporting of performance information to citizens. This grant was renewed in 2000 for an additional 3 years. This project has six phases. The phases are:

1. Establish a clearinghouse for performance measurement on the Internet- www.seagov.org. (Originally completed in 1998)
2. Analyze and evaluate the uses and effects of using performance measures for budgeting, management, and reporting by conducting interviews and surveys and then preparing case studies of the findings. (These case studies can be found at the SEA website. A CD-Rom of the case studies was issued in 2000)
3. Analyze and evaluate users’ responses to performance measures by holding citizen discussion groups at various locations across the country. (As noted in the introduction, a Research Report containing the findings of these discussion groups was published in July 2002.
4. Develop a set of suggested criteria that will help entities effectively communicate and report performance information.
5. Encourage experimentation with the suggested criteria for external performance reporting.
6. Evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested criteria for reporting performance information and assess whether they have developed sufficiently for further Board consideration.

It is important to note that “the purpose of the SEA research project is to encourage experimentation with external reporting of performance information, to provide nonauthoritative guidance for the communication of performance information, and to assess how successful the guidance has been in assisting state and local government organizations to effectively communicate the results of their operations. This report describes a set of suggested criteria that state and local governments can use in preparing an effective report on performance information” (Intro., Special Report, 2003).

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