Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington, has been lobbying for years about the need for what she labels “results-based accountability” or RBA. She did so as a Republican and when she switched affiliation to the Democratic Party. But after 15 years in office, she has seen little progress.

The reasons are two-fold. RBA is hard and RBA is not popular.

The intent is to create mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of government programs. The logic is solid. If policymakers know which programs are effective or ineffective, they can budget accordingly. Without such information, legislatures can keep on approving funding for programs that are not working or deny funding for programs that ara, simply because they do not have popular or political support.

But measuring effectiveness is more difficult in the public sector. Produce a product in the private sector that sits on the shelves and it becomes clear that further investment is not a good idea. But what is the measure for the success of a social services program? Is it the ability to move people into the workforce? Keeping people from falling deeper into poverty? Making sure those who qualify for a program get the services they are eligible to receive?

Then there is the resistance. Neither state agencies nor the politicians who support them may want to learn about their effectiveness, because that can mean money being channeled elsewhere or added pressure to do the job well.

It may be painstaking, but Urban says it is possible to set expectations for performance in the private sector and measure them. The CT Kids Report Card, for example, has shown progress in measuring whether state programs for children in need are meeting the goals of providing those children safe, stable and healthy environments.

Yet progress in setting standards and measuring them must proceed at a much faster pace. In his budget address this week, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, while not referring to the initiative as RBA, made a commitment to making state government work better.

“The bill I submit to you today will require agencies to post online detailed, meaningful, timely information about how they are spending the people's money, and precisely what that money is accomplishing. And, at the same time we're making agency budgets more transparent, we also need to push commissioners to find more cost-effective ways of accomplishing their respective missions,” Malloy said.

Easier said than done, comes to mind. Yet the initiative is welcomed and the governor’s efforts to achieve such reforms deserves both support and careful monitoring.