Today Governor Inslee put his stamp on the state's long track record with performance management efforts with a "soft" launch of Results Washington. As noted by his press release:

Gov. Jay Inslee today formally launched Results Washington, which will provide faster and easier answers to those questions and access to an unprecedented array of performance data related to his top goals.

Once fully in place, Results Washington will make it easier than ever for state leaders to spot trends and make data-driven decisions that improve quality and speed up service delivery. It will lead to better-informed budget and policy decisions. It will also make it possible for Washingtonians to see for themselves how well state government and its many partners — such as school districts, local governments and community organizations — deliver services and meet key performance goals.

'Taxpayers expect and deserve to see results from their government,' Inslee said. 'Results Washington will give us the data we need to learn from what is working, fix what’s broken and direct resources to our most important priorities.'

Among the Governor's target areas for performance tracking:

• World-Class Education
   
• Prosperous Economy
   
• Sustainable Energy and a Clean Environment
   
• Healthy and Safe Communities
   
• Efficient, Effective and Accountable Government

After reviewing the initial goals, the Governor's call for public involvement becomes more clear:

Inslee invites the public to participate in a one-hour Twitter town hall Thursday, Sept. 12 from 10-11 a.m. to ask questions and share ideas about the proposed goals and performance measures detailed at www.results.wa.gov. People can follow the town hall at @GovInslee and use #ResultsWA to ask questions.

Among the details the public is being asked to fill in:

• "Increase the percentage of schools rated exemplary or very good on the Washington School Achievement Index from X to X by 20XX (TBD)"
   
• "Increase percentage of teachers rated distinguished from X to X by 20XX"
   
• "Reduce opportunity gaps for all students through proficiency in reading, math, science (including biology for high school) from X to X by 20XX"
   
• "Increase timely delivery for state services from X to X by 20XX (TBD)"
   
• "Increase customer satisfaction from X to X by 20XX (TBD)"
   
• "Increase the percentage of employees eliminating wastes in job tasks by X% over baseline by 20XX (TBD)"
   
• "Increase the number of Results Washington outcome measures and leading indicators improving from X to X by 20XX (TBD)"
   
• "Increase access to state government data from X to X by 20XX (TBD)"
   
• "Decrease rate of extremely serious worker injuries that lead to hospitalizations from XX to XX by 20XX"
   
• "Reduce rate of growth of per capita personal health care expenditures from X% in 20XX to X% by 20XX"
   
• "Increase small business employment by X% from 2012 to 2015"
   
• "Increase water availability in Eastern Washington from X acre-feet to X acre-feet by 2016"

Earlier this year Governor Inslee vetoed this budget proviso that would have helped the legislature focus its budget on performance outcomes saying that the effort would be duplicative to his new Results Washington program:

A JLARC study of the “integration of performance measurements into the state budgeting process and the ability of the legislative fiscal committees to use effective performance indicators in developing the state budget.”

From the Governor's veto message:

This proviso directs the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee to study the effectiveness of state agency performance indicators and performance measurement processes established in Chapter 43.88 RCW, the state Budget and Accounting Act. My administration is already conducting a thorough and rigorous review of state agency performance indicators and measurements through our Results Washington initiative. I appreciate the Legislature's interest in performance management, but this review would be unnecessarily duplicative.

Have thoughts on whether these are the right goals for the state and what the benchmarks should be? Join the Governor on twitter on Sept 12 or email him your recommendations.