3: Financial Performance
Improved Financial Performance Other Information:
[Note: The preceding portions of this section cannot be copied from the original PDF, so it is incompletely reproduced here.
See the source document for the remainder of the text.] — We will make changes to the budget process that will allow us to
better measure the real cost and performance of programs. THE EXPECTED RESULTS • More accurate benefit and assistance payments
to current recipients will enable programs to serve additional eligible recipients without increasing their budgets and will
reduce program costs. For example: — Reducing erroneous payments in federal housing programs will result in being able to
provide housing subsidies to currently eligible people who are not being served due to limited funding. — Reducing erroneous
payments in entitlement programs, such as Food Stamps or Social Security, will decrease the cost of these programs to the
American taxpayer. As an indication, with heightened scrutiny, the estimated erroneous payment rate for the Medicare program
was reduced from 14 percent in 1996 to 6.8 percent in 2000. — Preliminary data from test matches between the Departments of
Education and the Treasury suggest that the Pell Grant program is making over-awards of up to $400 million each year because
students or their parents do not report their income accurately on their student aid applications. If those erroneous overpayments
were eliminated, the savings could be used to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by up to $100, providing more grant assistance
to low-income students to help them afford college. • Improved accountability to the American people through audited financial
reports. — Financial systems that routinely produce information that is: • timely, to measure and effect performance immediately;
• useful, to make more informed operational and investing decisions; and • reliable, to ensure consistent and comparable trend
analysis over time and to facilitate better performance measurement and decision making.
Objective(s):
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