Government Reform – Page 3

Oregon Pioneer Prize

Problem

As a state and a society, there are numerous challenges we face. Government can’t solve all these problems, and could be immensely helped by attracting the attention and efforts of talented people willing to work at tackling society’s toughest challenges.

Solution

Oregon State Representative Tobias Read is proposing to harness the talent of innovators everywhere by offering prize(s) to individuals and teams who solve large identified challenges. Like the U.K.’s Longitude Prize or the private sector’s X Prize, Rep. Read believes that state government can convene expertise from academia, business, non profits and more to identify our biggest challenges, develop quantifiable measures on which to evaluate potential solutions, and award prizes to those solutions that best solve the identified problems.

City County Compact

Problem

Like in many areas of the country, the City of Dayton and Montgomery County have not always worked together effectively to make government work faster, fill in gaps and improve customer service.

Solution

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley has helped lead the effort to enter into the first ever City County Compact with Montgomery County to align priorities and leverage both government’s resources. Through the Compact, 5 specific initiatives have been chosen for 2014-2015, including projects in education, workforce development, public safety, criminal justice and environmental quality. By publicly declaring the Compact’s goals, the governments will be held accountable for measurable results.

Citizen Data Scientist Challenge

Problem

Government departments collect information on their services but rarely have enough time to analyze their data to ask meaningful questions that could lead to delivering services more effectively.

Solution

Mayor Andy Berke has proposed the “Citizen Data Scientist Challenge,” as a way to provide departments with meaningful information on how to improve their services by crowdsourcing the analysis of their data from everyday citizens and students. The challenge will help increase trust in government, by providing an opportunity for citizens to engage directly with local government and propose their own solutions for how government can be made more effective.

Git City Codes

Problem

City codes are complex, confusing and often maintained by a private third party behind a paywall. How they are updated only adds to the confusion and makes it near impossible for anyone, other than a chosen few government employees, to understand the changes. As a result, there is often very little input from citizens when the code is changed and no way for a citizen track let alone suggest changes.

Solution

Mayor Andy Berke has developed Git City Codes, which moves the operating DNA of cities, their codes and ordinances, into the public light by opening up the code to general public and managing updates through Git. Git is a distributed revision control system often used for collaborative computer coding projects. This will allow citizens to access all city codes and provide more timely input on improvements.

Radical Transparency

Problem

Citizens often don’t have access to the same data and information that city officials use to make their decisions and as a result it can often be confusing how decisions are made.

Solution

Mayor Andy Berke has proposed the “Radical Transparency” initiative in Chattanooga, that opens up the data and information that drives decision making within the city to the general public. Lots of cities have open data or transparency or performance management efforts, but rarely are they all connected. This effort leverages the efforts already in place to use data to drive continuous improvements through performance management and provides that same information to the public via the city’s open data portal. By allowing anyone to view and perform their own analysis on such data, Mayor Berke is helping to restore trust in local government.

S.BEND Reports

Problem

The City of South Bend created the first open data portal in Indiana in 2013, but the distribution of information through this platform has not had a measurable impact to further conversations with residents on how to improve city services beyond anecdotes.

Solution

Mayor Pete Buttigieg helped launch S.BEND reports, which helps breakdown big data on the performance of city services into more manageable and relevant information for residents. Through the Director of Community Outreach the City codes and catalogs each neighborhood’s priorities, then gathers data about city services like Vacant and Abandoned Home Initiative or Code Enforcement and reflects meaningful information, like the total amount of pounds of litter removed from illegal dumping in the neighborhood, while providing context regarding how the neighborhood fares relative to the rest of the city. By making this open data portal more accessible to city residents, S.BEND reports helps elicit action, including an increase in neighbor compliance with Code Violations, which reduces operational costs for the city – as city crews do not have to abate violations- while improving the quality of life in the neighborhoods.

How to steal this idea:

Learn more about South Bend’s open data portal at https://data.southbendin.gov/.

For additional resources, visit https://www.ci.south-bend.in.us/government/content/open-data.

Numerous cities outside Indiana have adopted open data portals and policies.

Charlotte in North Carolina developed an interactive tool that generates reports at a neighborhood; however, the data does not refer to specific city services.
The City of Chicago, in a partnership lead by Argonne National Lab and Brett Goldstein, are developing Plenario, a tool that analyses open data in arbitrarily defined geographies, but residents with low tech skills might still be unable to use this data. Learn more about Plenario at https://www.govtech.com/data/University-of-Chicagos-Plenario-Changes-How-We-Use-Open-Data.html.

Visit and share the gallery of NewDEAL Challenge winners at governing.com/newdeal.

Empathy School

Problem

Cities often create solutions to solve a problem they have with providing a service to citizens without any thought or consideration to the end user, the citizen. This internal focus creates services that work for cities but not for citizens.

Solution

Empathy is key to citizen centered design and a muscle that must be exercised if cities want to develop city services that are responsive to their citizens needs. Mayor Andy Berke has proposed the creation of an Empathy school, which puts city and community leaders in the shoes of everyday citizens as they seek to attempt to access the same services and use the same systems. Through this understanding, city departments will be able to improve how their services meet the needs of the citizens they serve.

Making Government Awesome

Problem

Typically, government services are built after long, costly procurement processes that rarely ask users for input on their interactions with those services. Meanwhile citizens’ interactions with government are often perceived as cumbersome or inefficient. In order to increase trust in government, local agencies should place users at the center of service design in order to make government services more convenient and easily delivered to citizens.

Solution

Mayor Andy Berke has proposed a new way of approaching government services through his “Making Government Awesome” plan. By implementing a user-focused design in reimagining how government services are delivered and consumed, Mayor Berke is helping to improve how citizens interact with their local government. Through this approach, Berke has already been able to make the permitting process in Chattanooga easier for new businesses through a user-centric design process.

Background Checks

Problem

Pennsylvania state colleges and universities failed to obtain criminal and child abuse background checks for all workers at youth summer athletic and academic camps on the school’s’ campuses.

Solution

After finding a lack of background checks during audits of six universities, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale established recommendations that universities enforce their background check policy for youth camps to ensure that they obtain and retain the appropriate background checks for all student employees, outside temporary workers, temporary part-time instructors, and volunteers who have direct contact with minors at youth athletic and academic camps.

School and City Financial Merger

Problem

The financial software that the Board of Education uses in Middletown is outdated and inefficient, not allowing the school system to meet Connecticut’s state standards on financial reporting. Furthermore, the lack of coordination and transparency between city and school finances often leads to duplicative efforts and a lack of understanding how funds are being used each year.

Solution

Mayor Dan Drew helped lead the merger of financial operations between Middletown’s city hall and school system in order to save millions, prevent future litigation, and enable more transparent public school expenditures. The integration will provide upgraded software that will help make financial reporting more efficient for both the city and schools. By using the same software, the city will be also able to remove duplicative efforts between the two parties and help provide a better understanding for how city and school finances are being spent. Mayor Drew also hopes that this plan will ameliorate some of the pressure from school funding on local regressive tax rates by improving communication between city and school finances.

Oregon Pioneer Prize

Problem

Solution

City County Compact

Problem

Solution

Citizen Data Scientist Challenge

Problem

Solution

Git City Codes

Problem

Solution

Radical Transparency

Problem

Solution

S.BEND Reports

Problem

Solution

Empathy School

Problem

Solution

Making Government Awesome

Problem

Solution

Background Checks

Problem

Solution

School and City Financial Merger

Problem

Solution

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