ABSTRACT
Performance measurement systems can be difficult to execute in an intergovernmental context. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which underwent major transformations from 2000 to 2007, exemplifies most of the performance issues that ought to be taken into account when decision-makers reengineer or design a system in which federal funding flows to states and communities. In this chapter, I present an overview of CDBG and the innovative process used to transform it; then, I summarize issues identified in reforming CDBG’s performance measurement system, developing CDBG outcome and impact measures; and finally, I discuss concerns in constructing specific CDBG indicators or metrics. Because the system has yet to be fully implemented—as of late 2007—it is too soon to assess whether it will be an improvement over past efforts. But it is clear that CDBG learned much from current and past efforts at transformation.
