Whats the difference between performance auditing and program evaluation?
In performance auditing, you look more at processes. You may address effectiveness, but the focus is on process, efficiency and economy. With program evaluation, you look at return on investment and whether those results are still needed. Program evaluation is slower and more deliberate and may conclude that the program shouldn’t be done at all. There are legislatures that do program evaluation very well — Arizona, Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia — but most still do more performance audits than evaluations. The Washington State Public Policy Institute approach is more in line with what our legislators want us to do here. Why is this kind of program evaluation needed? Often the thoughtful people that designed the programs are no longer alive and programs have morphed since then. My late father was a wildlife biologist who, like others, pushed state intervention to prevent extinction of wildlife in the early 20th century. States created game and fish commissions. They knew precisely the
