BLM RECEIVES PRESIDENTIAL RECOGNITION
FOR FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today honored the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as a finalist in competition for the President=s Quality Award, presented in a ceremony in the Reagan Center. The President=s Quality Award recognizes excellence in government.

The BLM is one of seven finalists selected out of 100 government entities that applied to the Office of Personnel Management, which administered the award process.

AThe BLM=s performance and results in the area of Budget and Performance Integration set an example for the rest of the Interior Department and the rest of the federal government,@ said Lynn Scarlett, Assistant Secretary of Interior for Policy, Management, and Budget. BLM Director Kathleen Clarke and Assistant Director for Business and Fiscal Resources Robert Doyle accepted the award for the agency.

AOn behalf of all BLM employees, I want to express our pride in all those whose work is connected with this President=s Quality Award. It is a tribute to all BLM employees who have reached such a high level of achievement,@ said BLM Director Kathleen Clarke.

The BLM has created a financial management process that collects cost and performance information on a real-time basis in a disciplined and well-integrated manner. Using that information, the agency can clearly identify misalignment between resources and performance targets. This enables BLM to realign funding, reallocate to staff, and re-engineer business processes to meet mission goals.

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