State adopting Pew system to measure effectiveness of spending

JACKSON — Mississippi officials are adopting a national system created by the Pew Center for the States to measure how much benefit a dollar of public spending creates.

The system is first being set up to measure the effectiveness of criminal justice and corrections programs, but could be expanded to other areas in the future.

House and Senate Appropriations Committee members heard a presentation on the plan yesterday.

Mississippi tried in the 1990s to measure the effectiveness of its spending, but those measures have been ignored in recent years. Gov. Phil Bryant has also called for making spending decisions based on results, but lawmakers moved little on the subject in 2012.

Gary VanLandingham, director of the Pew Center’s Results First, says his group’s system can help Mississippi spend wisely in tough times.