CALFED Bay-Delta Program heading
  • Governor Schwarzenegger
  • Mike Chrisman, Resources Secretary
  • Joe Grindstaff, CALFED Director

About Program Performance

CALFED Program Performance and Tracking

How an organization targets desired results, measures its activities and assesses its performance is critical to the successful implementation of a strategic planning process and performance-based management. Performance measurement requires translating program goals and objectives into measurable indicators of progress. They are a vital part of an adaptive management approach that provides useful information for decision-making based on strength as well as weakness. This insight helps to reveal critical areas needing adjustment.

The CALFED 10 Year Action Plan of 2006 indicated that the program’s implementing agencies would be responsible for developing and using performance measures to evaluate the effect of their program actions and to determine if they are achieving overall CALFED objectives.  During fiscal year 2006-2007, performance reviews were conducted in three parallel efforts to this end:

Retrospective Assessment - BDPAC Program Performance and Financing Subcommittee

The CALFED Public Advisory Committee created this Subcommittee for the purpose of assessing whether or not the program is accomplishing its goals. In collaboration with program staff, the Subcommittee documented a retrospective assessment of CALFED accomplishments and shortcomings to date in a form intended to be accessible to the public.

Program Performance Workplan

Agency performance measures subgroups have been organized around CALFED objectives - Water Quality, Water Supply Reliability, Levee System Integrity and Ecosystem Restoration. Their focus is in developing prospective performance measures to help guide program decisions during Stage 2. Guided by the CALFED Science Program, the subcommittees' analyses to date have focused on developing an initial set of performance measures and an implementation plan for a full suite of measures, including conceptual models and monitoring. A draft analysis is provided through a presentation to both the Bay-Delta Public Advisory Committee and the California Bay-Delta Authority on June 20-21, 2007 and supporting materials.

CALFED Project Performance Information

These reports have been augmented by an examination of current CALFED projects and funding. CALFED staff, working in collaboration with implementing agency staffs, has developed a consolidated database of project information for efforts funded during program years 1 through 8, respectively. These are fiscal years 2000-01 through 2007-08. The results of this analysis are provided in a downloadable PDF.

Alternate Approaches

In reviewing CALFED's performance-related information, it is also useful to consider the approaches applied at similar agencies in other states. Of particular interest are the efforts underway at the Chesapeake Bay, Everglades and the state of Washington: