Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Minor

Give HMRE programs a fair and realistic assessment

Partially done

480 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“Ensure proper assessments with enough time to assess HMRE programs. … The HMRE program should receive a fair and realistic assessment.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    OIRA approved the revision without change on 2026-07-06 (ICR reference 202604-0970-010), so the revised assessment regime is in force for the 2025 cohort: annual rather than quarterly reporting, a shorter instrument set, and five years to run before the cohort is judged. That is a piece of what the Quote asks for - assessment with enough time and a realistic burden - delivered by a completed action. It is not `done`: the ask is about whether HMRE programs are evaluated fairly on effectiveness, and no change has been made to the impact evaluations themselves.

  2. Attempted

    ACF proposed a revision to the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood performance measures (OMB 0970-0566) for the cohort awarded five-year grants in September 2025. It says ACF 'conducted an updated analysis of the measures and obtained feedback from key audiences, including HMRF grant recipients, federal staff, and program clients', and proposes to eliminate the applicant characteristics survey, eliminate the requirement to file a program operations survey and performance report after the first three quarters of each grant year, and modify the entrance and exit surveys and the annual Performance Progress Report.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The OIRA conclusion date comes from reginfo.gov’s PRA side, https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAOMBHistory?ombControlNumber=0970-0566: ICR 202604-0970-010, received 2026-05-04, concluded 2026-07-06, ‘Approved without change’. The Federal Register notice alone would not have shown that the revision took effect.
  • Boundary call: a reviewer who reads the Quote as being about effectiveness evaluations rather than about performance-measure reporting would hold this at not started; the reporting cadence and the burden reduction are what carry it to partial.
Action
other
Object
HMRE program assessments
ID
1333