PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

In my role as a lobbyist, I worked on occasion with a business owner from Salem who thought the phrase “return on investment” should apply to every government program. And he was not hesitant to use the axiom in any of his conversations with legislators in Oregon.

Think about it for a minute and it may strike you, as it does me, as a very good criterion for all government programs. Still, the test of getting results rarely is used.

Consider this most recent example pointed out by Oregonian editorial writers about a City of Portland program – providing money to the Regional Arts and Culture Council, which issues grants to arts organizations in the Portland area.

Forget a basic question – should spending money on arts be a role for government – and consider this criticism lofted by the Oregonian.

“An audit, requested by Commissioner Nick Fish and Mayor Ted Wheeler last year, reveals how the city and arts council have operated for 20 years with little thought of measuring impact, meeting objectives or showing the public what their millions of dollars a year are buying.”

“…The City of Portland never articulated any clear goals of what it wanted to achieve with regard to arts and culture. The arts council had no strategic plan to guide its actions. Contract provisions were vague, making it difficult to gauge progress. And the city provided almost no oversight of the nonprofit’s spending, despite giving the arts council more than $20 million in General Fund money since 2012, according to city budget office figures. That’s money that could have gone to public safety, homelessness or many other core needs and doesn’t even include any of the arts tax revenue passed on to the arts council since 2013.”

What has happened in Portland occurs elsewhere, as well, including in relation to far larger state government programs.

Return on investment is rarely used as a tool to measure success – or failure.

The tendency is that, once in place, a government programs stays in place no matter what.

I have seen failure to pay attention for far too long. Taxpayers deserve better.

For me, RESULTS matter. Do government programs produce the results they were created to produce?

If so, good.

If not, do away with them and take either of two actions: Save the money or invest it in new programs that are subjected to a “return on investment” test.