State Budget Choices

The choices states make today about how to invest their limited resources will dramatically shape our nation’s future. Results First is helping states implement cutting-edge cost-benefit analysis tools that allow them to identify options that provide the best outcomes while improving their fiscal health. Results First can help states get better results with lower costs.

By more accurately assessing the true costs and benefits of public programs, Results First helps policy makers identify options that yield the greatest return on investment for taxpayers. As states build a climate for decision making based on research and evidence, they can eliminate ineffective programs and shift resources to those that generate better outcomes for their citizens.

Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington State report that this new approach, developed by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, has helped produce bipartisan policies that improved results while saving more than a billion dollars.

Currently partnering with Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Texas, and Vermont, Results First welcomes the opportunity to work with other states that have the capacity and desire to improve the way they make policy choices.

Results First is an initiative of the Pew Center on the States and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with additional support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.