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Overview

• Evaluate the current status of open data policies in the states and municipalities using sources, policies, and implementation
• Sources like
  • http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/following-money-2016-0 US PIRG report following the money: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data
  • Ranking on Budget transparency from USNews https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/government/budget-transparency
  • US Federal Government published open data policy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/policy-memo/
  • our own Transparency Scorecard
  • What Works http://www.opendatapolicies.org
  • State Bill with open data in them title https://openstates.org/all/bills/?abbr=&search_text=Open+data
  • And the Federal, State, and Municipal open data sources themselves https://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide.php

Details

• First revision, July 2017: With interns and a few others, we created the first revision tab of the transparancy scorecard google sheet. We only used a few attributes and not all the states, but it gave us a starting point to access the current state of the states’ financial transparency.
  • [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xUCq0jGeQjpt2noZF7d28wEglzHBIFxemSs3eBZTyiw/edit?usp=sharing Transparency scorecard as a google sheet with two tabs]
  • [https://docs.google.com/a/lincolninitiative.com/document/d/12KZELC0H8HTnBLWyy3_VuqHdKg_dCzRJN7VtiCm6x1E/edit?usp=sharing Methodology and Research that went into the first revision of the Transparency Scorecard]
  • We used the 2016 PIRG score
  • plus our attributes of accessibility and
  • downloadability
• Second revision, start Dec 2017, complete Spring 2018: Sean started talking to Ohio and California about how to improve and build on what we started. The second revision tab of the google sheet is using the five key attributes we found important when reviewing a financial transparency site. We should continue the discussion on the mailing list about this revised survey and next steps to merge the state data, complete the state data, and start surveying municipalities.
  • For this revision, lets focus on Quantity of information we can gather
  • Forbes contributor provided an 85 municipal open data index will can start from https://www.forbes.com/sites/metabrown/2017/06/30/quick-links-to-municipal-open-data-portals-for-85-us-cities/#62726e7f2290
  • We can ask Ohio for their municipalities list
  • Does CPC or the California Treasury Office have a municipality list?
  • Attributes to review and score
    • Easy to use website. Is it intuitive or difficult to figure out?
    • Single pane of glass. One panel or location to find all finance information
    • Common, easy to understand data export formatting, e.g. comma delimited (CSV) and text delimited (TXT) formats
    • Easy to use functionality for entire checkbook datasets. Is the data all similar in presentation and delivery?
    • Data schemes and techniques provided with datasets, e.g. CSV column headers explain the data provided.
    • Data source
    • Time spent gathering data [min]
    • Average Transparency Score [0-10]
    • PIRG State Transparency Score (should we include this as part of the municipal scoring?)
    • Other third party scoring ?
• Third revision, complete Summer 2018
• Automation
• Visualization
• Start focusing on the Quality of information we can gather
• References and thoughts:
  • details of how accessibility and downloadablity was determined for the first revision of the scorecard
  • completing the analysis of the remaining states
  • start including reviewing municipalities
  • comparative analysis of two similar municipalities on one specific metric. Cleargov does this.
  • adding visualization like heat maps and geo location. Restart USC’s Open Data LA project https://communicationleadership.usc.edu/news/usc-open-data-la-initiative-promotes-public-access-to-government-data-throughout-los-angeles-county/ , https://data.lacity.org, http://civictechusc.org/press/ and http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/21/open-government-data/
  • when does this work out grow a gsheet and a repository with code becomes necessary?
  • [http://www.hsr.ca.gov/Board/monthly_fa_committee_meeting.html High-speed rail project finance committee meeting agendas and notes. You can find lists of contracts and expenditures on their public web site here]
  • [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ojG9k_AfKevwFMC7jgNucUvKI44V96_QYDCaMBh2f8w/edit?usp=sharing Self Transparency Survey gdoc for handing out at events with government officials]

Meetings

• Next meeting, use this as a template http://wiki.opendatainitiative.io/Projects/Transparency_Report/meeting/18dec2017

Discuss Transparency Report on the Mailing List

• Email Address: [mailto:[email protected] [email protected]]
• Subject: [transparency report] setting a meeting time
• Message: Let’s start meeting to discuss the project. How about a hangout next Monday at 11am?
• Review the MailingListEtiquette for more details on using the mailing lists