NLPES Awards Program

Washington Wins 1999 NLPES Excellence in Legislative Program Evaluation Award

1999

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PROGRAM EVALUATION

JOINT LEGISLATIVE AUDIT AND REVIEW COMMITTEE

Thomas Sykes, Legislative Auditor

The NLPES announces that the recipient of the 1999 Excellence in Legislative Program Evaluation award is Washington's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC).

The criteria for this award states that the award will be presented to the office producing a printed report or innovative alternative product that utilized exemplary means to provide information to the legislature.

The mission of Washington JLARC is to ensure that its work is responsive and useful to the legislature's priorities and issues. To accomplish this mission, JLARC has developed tools to communicate audit results to public policymakers. Realizing that legislators have limited time to read an entire audit report, JLARC develops a one-page report summary for each study. The goal of each summary is to convey the most important information concerning a report in a concise and easy-to-read format. In addition to report summaries, JLARC staff make visual presentations to legislative committees through the use of state-of-the-art presentation technology. Audio recordings of some JLARC presentations can be accessed through an Internet location. In addition to the different means of communicating the results of individual reports, JLARC regularly produces newsletters and summary reports that update legislators on current developments and impacts of JLARC audits and studies. These efforts allow JLARC to summarize concisely the direction, content and results of a wide range of studies, as well as highlight fiscal impacts of some of the agency's major efforts. JLARC's Impact Report for 1998 states that the agency's 1998 performance audits, program evaluations, sunset reviews and other studies identified possible biennial cost savings of $26 million.

NLPES commends Washington State JLARC for its years of service to the Washington State legislature and its contributions to legislative program evaluation.