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House committee hears ACES overview of evaluations on suicide prevention, corrections and education
Summary
The Alabama Commission on Evaluation of Services told a House committee it has built a small, data-focused staff and produced evaluations pointing to improvements and persistent gaps in suicide prevention, community corrections, correctional education, rural health scholarships, teacher workforce issues and truancy accountability.
The House committee heard a presentation from the Alabama Commission on Evaluation of Services (ACES) about the agency's work evaluating state programs and recommending changes to improve outcomes and efficiency.
ACES leaders framed the office as a small, nonpartisan oversight body that uses data and performance metrics to guide recommendations. Chairman Orr, who traced the effort’s origins to his time as a general-fund chair during the 2011 recession, said the office was intended to replace ‘‘meat‑cleaver’’ budget decisions with targeted reviews. ‘‘We were crawling for several years... now I truly believe... we're walking. We're not running, but we're walking,’’ he said.
Marcus, ACES’s director, told the committee the office relies on methodical evaluations and stakeholder review. ‘‘We use a scalpel, not a chainsaw,’’ Marcus said, describing ACES’s approach to studying programs before making recommendations.
Why it matters: ACES’s evaluations have prompted administrative changes and legislative attention in several program…
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