| DCLPublicationDate: 3/1/99
DCLID: GEN-99-15
AwardYear:
Summary: We are well underway as the nations first Performance Based Organization
April 1999
GEN-99-15
Dear Partner, I am pleased to tell you that we are well underway as the nations first Performance Based Organization an organization that not only strives to work better and cost less, but sets clear objectives and measures progress toward them. The enclosed booklet contains our first performance objectives. They will guide us through September, when we will send our formal, five-year plan to Congress.
Improving customer service tops our list of objectives. We are going to do more than keep pace with our growing workload, even though we are proud of such accomplishments as processing record numbers of loan consolidation applications this year and keeping the average time under 60 days. But we will do more, create more positive experiences, and develop faster, more convenient, electronic services for our customers.
While we push service quality up, we are working to push costs down. And that means far more than just the administrative cost of running SFA. Our goals will encompass the overall cost of student financial assistance, including the costs of subsidizing lenders, and of defaulted loans, as well as the costly burden of government red tape born by the contractors who support us and the schools, lenders, and guarantors, who are our partners. We have to acknowledge and understand all of those costs, and build the financial and accounting systems that give us power to manage costs.
We must also create the systems we need to transform SFA into a truly successful PBO systems that let users test and influence new products, that measure customer satisfaction, and that capture and resolve customer complaints systems that measure employee satisfaction, that provide for training and growth, and put authority with responsibility in the hands of the workers who serve the customers.
When we achieve these interim objectives, we will have set down a strong foundation. On it, we will build a Performance Based Organization that equals the best in business in service delivery and financial management.
Send us your thoughts and ideas on this plan to coo_woods@ed.gov. They will help shape the September plan.
Sincerely,
Greg Woods
Chief Operating Officer
Office of Student Financial Assistance |