Financial Transparency Trailblazers

Thom Robbins

Socrata

The 4 Pillars of ValueData Driven Government Framework

Data Driven

Decision Making

Operational

Efficiency

Citizen

Experience

Economic

Impact

What is Transparency?Let’s Get Started

The concept of open data

and public sector data

transparency is hardly new.

Providing constituents

with access to the important

information that impacts

their lives and communities

is not just good policy,

it’s common sense.

What’s the benefit?

“States with transparent websites

often realized significant financial

returns on their investment. The

savings coming in forms big and small

- more efficient government

administration, more competitive

bidding for public project and less staff

time spent on information requests, to

name just a few - and can add up to

many millions of dollars.”

Why Financial Transparency?

Improves

Government

Builds

Public Trust

Strengthens

Citizen

Engagement

Reduces

Operating

Costs

Supports

Data-Driven

Decisions

Promotes

Economic

Activity

Why Financial Transparency?

Negotiating contracts and increasing competition

Texas was able to renegotiate its copier machine lease to save $33 million over three years. The state was also able to negotiate prison food

Increased competition, partially resulting from the launch of Florida’s contract database, has allowed the state to re-procure and re-negotiate contracts

at lower costs, saving $3.2 million between October 2012 and June 2013.4

Identifying and eliminating inefficient spending

In Texas, the comptroller’s office used its transparency website over the first two years it was launched to save $4.8 million from more efficient

administration. For example, the office avoided spending $328,000 on a new mail sorter by instead setting up separate post office boxes to receive

different types of mail.

Once South Dakota’s new transparency website was launched, an emboldened reporter requested additional information on subsidies that led

legislators to save about $19 million per year by eliminating redundancies in their economic development program.

Reducing costly information requests

Mississippi estimates that every information request fulfilled by its transparency website rather than by a state employee saves the state between $750

and $1,000 in staff time.

Massachusetts’ procurement website has saved the state $3 million by eliminating paper, postage and printing costs associated with information

requests by state agencies and paperwork from vendors. Massachusetts has also saved money by reducing staff time for public records management,

retention, provision, archiving and destruction.

South Carolina open records requests initially dropped by two-thirds after the creation of its transparency website, reducing staff time and saving an

estimated tens of thousands of dollars.

Transparency websites are important and useful to residents

New York’s transparency website has recorded 2 million visits since its launch in June 2008.

Florida’s online checkbook for contracts has recorded 282,000 visits from 88,000 users since its launch in June 2012. The number of page views totals 5.5

million.

Mississippi’s transparency website recorded more than 16,000 hits per month in 2013—a large increase from 8,000 hits per month in 2012.

In 2013, users accessed Washington’s checkbook tool over 80,000 times, and ran approximately half a million reports.

Show me the benefits! (PERG 2014)

Enables users to navigate all

aspects of the capital and/or

operating budgets. Easily

view allocation at the

department, project, and

individual program level.

Track invoice-level detail to

better understand where

public money goes and which

vendors receive it.

Explore, compare and drill

down quickly on public

payroll by job type,

department and role.

Socrata Financial Transparency Suite360 degree view of financial information (internal/external)

Open Expenditure Open Budget Open Payroll

Financial Transparency Deep Dive

Humanize Complex Financial Issues

Citizens can

find the data

that matters to

them most with

neighborhood-

level data.

Go Beyond Simple Transparency

Foster

an active

dialogue

with the public

around the

budget.

Promote Self-Service Access

Let citizens,

journalists,

and other

stakeholders find

the exact data

they need with

intuitive, easy-to-

understand drill

downs.

Tell your story

Tell your story

easily using

narration and

easily

consumable

visualizations

Data Driven Government FrameworkActualizing the Benefits

Citizen Experience Data-Driven Decision Making Operational Efficiency Economic Impact

Citizen participation in

government decisions

Systematic approach to tracking

and defining goals

Consolidation and re-use of apps,

data and services

Ability to deliver reduced data

transaction costs to businesses

User friendly digital services on

web, mobile and machine to

machine interfaces

Interactive public dashboard to

show performance data

Retirement of ageing systems,

and the ability to scale programs

more easily

Embrace “catalyst” role in the

emerging data economy; help in

incubating civic startups

Government services via location

aware mobile-apps

Data visualization and employee

facing analytics app to extract

insights

Reduction of labor intensive

information requests through self

service tools

Access to data that supports

academic research, driving new

discoveries

Integration with consumer web

services like Google Maps, Yelp,

and Zillow

Sophisticated data collection

capabilities including

crowdsourcing and social

networks

Economies of scale through

outsourced data storagePublic private data exchanges

Active promotion of data

transparency efforts

De-siloed system and centralized

web based-based access to data

Shift from custom-build system

and databases to service-

oriented-architecture (SOA)

Cross-department and inter-

governmental data federation

OUTCOME DIMENSIONS

DEF

ININ

G A

CT

IVIT

IES

LEVEL OF DATA MATURITY

Consumer-style web &

mobile interfaces

Accessible storytelling

tools for Publishers

Open Performance and

fact-based decision

making

Robust, high-

performance data APIs

and developer

resources

Automated, real-time

data publishing

Turnkey, UX optimized

apps for high-value data

LEVEL 4

Data as

a Platform

Automatic syndication to

the Consumer Web

Built-in Apps Ecosystem

Data for analytics and

predictive modeling

Intra-government data

federation

Open connectors to

enterprise systems

Domain-specific peer

benchmarking

Location awareness and

mobile by default

Crowdsourcing data and

insight

Sensor-based streaming

data and apps

Data science-enabled

semantic discovery

across the network

LEVEL 5

The Open

Data Network

Scattered spreadsheets

and PDFs online

Legacy custom

web apps

LEVEL 1

Pre Open Data Silos

Basic catalog of

downloadable files

(CSV, XLS, SHP, ZIP,

PDF)

Metadata/Catalog APIs

LEVEL 2

The Catalog Phase

IT resource-intensive

development project

Manual data publishing

Limited interactivity with

basic data tables, and

visualizations

Social sharing

LEVEL 3

Basic Interactive Experience

Thinking about your program maturity

Value of SunGard and Socrata Together

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The “SunGard Open Government Data Agent”

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establish native integration between NaviLine

or ONESolution and Socrata applications.

Data Cloud™

SunGard Open

Government

Data Agent

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