OMB POLICY STATEMENTS
OMB’s Color Coded Grading System
Federal officials are not happy with the new way OMB is evaluating agencies progress in achieving the President’s Management Agenda. The new system is administered quarterly giving agencies a grade based on a tri-color coded system: green signifying success, yellow meaning the agency has achieved some criteria, and red indicating serious flaws. Officials are arguing the system is very ambiguous, and makes it difficult to compare one agency to another. They argue if the system is not fixed it might become meaningless in the near future.

"We need to come across with more uniform metrics on how we determine the color coding and the progress across the government or else [the score card] is fairly meaningless," he said during a panel discussion at the Excellence in Government 2004 conference.

"A single color is too simplistic a measure for the complexities you need to take into account on an agency's success," said David Chu, undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness.