As long as governments have tracked performance, there has been confusion about what to measure. Now that GFOA’s Distinguished Budget Presentation award criteria require governments to include performance measures in their budget documents, the challenge of finding the most appropriate measures continues.

GFOA has a best practice on performance measures that identifies characteristics of a good measure, but how do you go about selecting one? Or more than one? Follow these ten steps to identify appropriate performance measures for your government and for specific purposes.

• Publication date: December 2021