What Are the Funding Priorities and Who Makes the Cuts?

Sharing Best Practices and Recognizing Silos as a Barrier to Help Change the Future
A common complication state and local agencies continually encounter seems to occur at the federal level. No one understands—or empathizes—more than Mark Greenberg from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this video, Greenberg focuses on what the federal government and local and state agencies can do to bring programs together so they are all working toward the same goal. Greenberg also shares the challenge of understanding complex rules and regulations, making positive change where it's possible and focusing on best practices in human services at the federal, state and local levels.

Understand the Deep Roots and Making Changes
All programs requiring integration have “deep roots,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Tim O’Connor. What’s more, all the programs have changed significantly over the years. One striking example: the Food Stamp program. In 1977, when the Food Stamp Act passed, O’Connor says, every state administered it in the same way. But much has changed since then. Today, states and localities require a “national view,” O’Connor says.

What Are the Funding Priorities and Who Makes the Cuts?
This panel discussion explores decisions to cut—and in some cases, expand—funding for agencies at the federal level. The video touches on several key topics, such as serving growing populations on limited budgets and reducing costs for better outcomes. Agencies across the board need to focus on their return on investment, driving savings and yielding a positive return.

Jumping the Barrier
In this video, the USDA's Tim O'Connor discusses surmounting obstacles and barriers to achieving goals. The fundamental question, he says, is whether certain federal financial and management issues are enablers or barriers. Categorical programs that are intended to address separate issues represent a large faction of these barriers, especially on the financial side. The way to making programs more cost-effective and beneficial is to find creative solutions to working within—and sometimes around—certain silos, O'Connor says.

Funding and Program Integrity
Gary Glickman from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget lays out some of the nuts and bolts of detecting fraud. In particular, Glickman says, it is critical to focus on risk assessment up front, before fraud has a chance to surface.

Collaborating to Accomplish Agency Goals
The OMB's Gary Glickman discusses how his agency has pulled together consulting groups, programmers, technology and financial managers, the advocacy community and representatives from industry to improve processes and streamline operations. By looking at multiple programs across multiple jurisdictions, sharing data and working collaboratively, agencies can accomplish goals quicker, smarter and at reduced costs, Glickman says.

Help from the Federal Government: Partnership Fund
The OMB's Gary Glickman discusses the agency's Partnership Fund—what it is, how it works and what it was designed to achieve. Essentially, Glickman says, the fund can help agencies "accomplish more using the same dollars or less dollars than what we have now."

What is the Process for Announcing the Partnership Fund?
New York City's deputy mayor overseeing the city's health and human services division has been instrumental in creating HHS-Connect. This modernized program is responsible for breaking down silos and bettering both caseworkers' and clients' lives by using flexible technology to increase and manage accessibility to information and improve accountability. Linking more than 10 New York City health and human service agencies, HHS-Connect helps serve more than 2.5 million city residents. This discussion centers on the process for announcing the Partnership Fund for Program Integrity Innovation, a broad White House initiative aimed at eliminating waste and increasing accountability. The OMB's Gary Glickman delves into the deadlines and other restrictions within the program.

Breaking Barriers to Integration
The USDA's Tim O'Connor examines potential roadblocks, including health care reform. During discussion, Greg Wass, CIO for the Illinois Office of the Governor, commented on the tension between deadlines and vision, and that deadlines always seem to win. There are success stories to breaking down barriers and silos, however. In Illinois, for example, administrators initiated a successful five-state program called START, which offers services via a "cloud" beginning with just one service and gradually expanding services across communities.

Difficult Budget Year, Need to Look at Things Differently
The discussion on budgets continues as the OMB's Gary Glickman and Health and Human Services' Mark Greenberg lay out details on federal funding. Specifically, Glickman and Greenberg discuss next year's budgeting process and what could be "a very, very difficult budget year" and beyond.