OMB Director Peter Orszag released a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies this morning announcing a new initiative in the FY 2011 budget process that seeks to bring increased emphasis and resources for program evaluation within agencies. The memo has three separate goals:

1) Posting more information about federal evaluations online: OMB will begin working this fall with federal agencies to expand access to information about program evaluations.

With the end of the fiscal year upon it, Congress, as expected, passed a continuing resolution (CR) last Wednesday to provide short-term funds to government agencies and prevent a government shutdown. As reported by Congressional Quarterly (subscription required), the CR will keep most discretionary programs operating at fiscal 2009 levels through Oct. 31. Congress intends to use the extra time to pass its remaining FY 2010 appropriations bills.

On Friday, President Obama named Daniel Gordon, currently the deputy general counsel of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), as his nominee to run the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). Gordon has been at GAO for 17 years and has also worked as the managing associate general counsel for the GAO's Procurement Law Division and the associate general counsel and senior attorney for the Procurement Law Division. At first glance, Gordon seems like a real solid pick for this position who will certainly have a lot on his plate if he is confirmed by the Senate.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office released its third bimonthly report on the Recovery Act. The report, which examines the Act's implementation across the country, received a fair amount of press. Many of the articles focused on the speed of the Recovery Act spending, as the report noted that the spending is proceeding according to schedule, or how the report examines the effectiveness of the President's summer jobs program. Only a few articles, however, mentioned one of the most important quotes, at least in terms of Recovery Act transparency: "This unprecedented level of detailed information to be reported by a large number of recipients into a new centralized reporting system raises possible risk for the quality and reliability of these data." In other words, the GAO is very concerned about the quality of the October recipient reporting data.