Trump’s Labor Dept Chooses Draconian Approach to Management

Nick Hart, G. William Hoagland

Imagine spending billions of dollars on government programs and then making the decision to not evaluate whether they are working properly. That is essentially what President Trump’s Labor Department did by quietly slashing funds to conduct program evaluations.

Documents obtained by the Bipartisan Policy Center through the Freedom of Information Act show that the Labor Department’s political appointees reduced program evaluation funding to a bare minimum of $2 million which is historically low and down from $13 million and $27 million in previous years. It is wholly inadequate for evaluating the department’s $10 billion annual budget.

This action will result in knowing less about whether programs are having their intended impact, and potentially missing out on identifying the most cost-effective approaches that can save money for American taxpayers.

The importance of evaluation cannot be overstated. It is a tool for studying programs that helps government improve efficiency and results. It leads to better and smarter long-term investments. Not evaluating government programs is like sticking your head in the sand and hoping nothing bad happens. In the absence of rigorous evaluation, the valuable information needed to ensure programs are effective just isn’t available.

The Trump administration’s approach is especially disappointing because the Labor Department has long been viewed as a leader in conducting evaluation activities

The Trump administration’s approach is especially disappointing because the Labor Department has long been viewed as a leader in conducting evaluation activities. This leadership started during the George W. Bush administration and continued through the Barack Obama administration. Leadership that successfully spanned political ideologies in the past now appears to be rapidly eroding by underfunding and undervaluing evaluation as a tool for determining whether government programs are working as intended.

The Labor Department in 2010 created the position of chief evaluation officer to lead efforts to identify what was working and what wasn’t. Congress embraced the position and even funded support staff that developed a robust infrastructure for evaluation. Congress liked what was happening so much it even provided extra flexibility for other programs to transfer about $80 million in resources each fiscal year to fund new evaluations.

The Labor Department’s approach was viewed so favorably by academics, program administrators, and elected officials, that in 2017 every Democrat and Republican on the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking concluded it was a model the rest of government should emulate. They recommended that all agencies have a chief evaluation officer, along with supporting policies to ensure evaluations were rigorous, objective, credible, and implemented. The commission concluded it just made sense that government services should be evaluated, and that it should be an expectation the American public has for its government.

A bipartisan group of members of Congress agreed. A bill called the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act would make the commission’s recommendation for chief evaluation officers in all federal departments a reality.

Congress has even taken steps to use the Labor Department’s evaluations for major funding decisions. The budget agreement in early 2018 increased funding for Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA), based on the Labor Department’s impact evaluations and a Congressional Budget Office assessment that the program reduces total government costs. Based on this finding, Congress had what it needed to make prudent budget decisions.

But in 2018, the Labor Department’s leadership demonstrated evaluation is vulnerable when political appointees fail to recognize the value for improving decision-making by slashing funding for this essential assessment tool.

Evaluation is the best activity government can undertake to be effective and make sure what it is doing works.

Other federal agencies are also likely to be affected since the Labor Department has long been seen as a leader on the evaluation front. This Trump administration signal that evaluation is not the priority it once was will likely manifest in other agencies as a detriment to ensuring the policies and practices are in place to have credible evaluation.

This is especially surprising because in June 2018, the Trump administration’s proposals to reform government included a government-wide policy aimed at encouraging evaluation. If the administration believes this can be done for free, it will soon learn otherwise. Government needs the resources — people and funding — to execute good evaluation. The Labor Department, which has already established expertise in doing this work, is no exception.

Evaluation is the best activity government can undertake to be effective and make sure what it is doing works. That’s why the Labor Department must change this detrimental course in the future to ensure that from the top to the bottom of the organization evaluation is recognized as a necessary long-term investment for the good of government, the country, and the American people.

Nick Hart is director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Evidence Project. He previously served as the policy and research director for the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.

G. William Hoagland is senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He previously served as the Republican staff director for the Senate budget committee.