Governing principles

The system shall be governed by the following general principles: (1) Planning, programming, budgeting, evaluation, appraisal and reporting shall be by programs or groups of programs. (2) The state program structure shall be such as will enable meaningful decisions to be made by the governor and the legislature at all levels of the structure. At its lowest level, it shall display those programs which are the simplest units of activities, about which resource allocation decisions are to be made by the governor and the legislature. (3) A program which serves two or more objectives shall be placed in the program structure along with that objective which it primarily serves; where desirable, it shall also be placed with other objectives, but as a nonadd item. (4) The full cost, including research and development, capital and operating costs, shall be identified for all programs regardless of the means of financing; costs shall be displayed in the year of their anticipated expenditure, regardless of whether such costs have been authorized to be expended by prior appropriations acts or are authorized to be expended by existing law or require new appropriations or authorizations. (5) Objectives shall be stated for every level of the state program structure. (6) The effectiveness of programs in attaining objectives shall be assessed. (7) Planning shall have a long-range view. (8) Systematic analysis in terms of problems, objectives, alternatives, costs, effectiveness, benefits, risks and uncertainties shall constitute the core of program planning.