Making machine-readable budget data a criterion for the GFOA "Distinguished Budget Award"

[daguar]

This is more an institutional/policy hack:

The basic idea is to work to add some variation of "releasing machine-readable budget data" as a criterion for the "Distinguished Budget Award" given by the Govt Finance Officers' Association to cities.

For the current criteria checklist, see here: http://www.gfoa.org/downloads/BudgetDetailedCriteriaLocationGuideFY2011.pdf

This seems like a decent carrot: if you look at most city budgets, they love having that seal in there.

For an example, see PDF page 6 of Oakland, CA's budget: http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/cityadministrator/documents/policy/oak044747.pdf

I've spoken about this with @rebeccawilliams‎ at the Sunlight Foundation and @laurameixell‎ in Pittsburgh and they both seem interested in pursuing further.

[rebeccawilliams]

adding @kaitlin from Sunlight to the folks interested in this.

[adstiles]

Seems logical. Any idea how to pursue this? Note that most of the info about the award on the GFOA site is in a series of PDFs; may indicate cultural headwinds. Good news: Oakland is on its way to meeting this new criteria.

[kaitlin]

Do we have any contacts at GFOA? It might be best to reach out before we write a white paper. Or is the idea to write the proposal first and then try to win support?

Historically I've hated this notion, but does it make sense to have Sunlight and CFA endorsed "transparency seal/badge" that is an addition to the award and then (hopefully) becomes part of the award in the future? The whole idea of having an organization that certifies something transparent is icky to me, but I think if it eventually integrates with an existing award and then goes away then it's ok.

[daguar]

I'm happy for the approach to be contacting them first, but I just think having something concise and explaining what we're thinking up-front is necessary. ("White paper" may have been too heavy a description; but we do, for example, need a clear and concise description of what we mean by machine-readable.)

I don't have a contact there, but we might be able to use @adstiles's Oakland connections or @laurameixell's Pittsburgh ones. If there are any MPPs at Sunlight, a connection at GFOA is probably 3 degrees of separation away (particularly if there are any Syracuse folks.)

[adstiles]

@kaitlin can you explain a bit why an org certifying transparency is icky (or what would make it not so)? Does that apply equally whether it's Sunlight or CFA or GFOA?

It's an interesting idea, a separate transparency/accessibility "seal" (which would include machine-readable) or does this exist already? While I think aiming to root transparency in the most conventional/old-school institution (in this case GFOA) is in some ways a bigger step forward, it would also make it one of several criteria in a longer list, not under its own spotlight. Maybe a trade-off between institutional/cultural change vs a more focused shout-out for transparency.

[adstiles]

@daguar when we have a cohesive idea, I'm happy to share it with budget staff here. I'll also try to get a sense from them to what extent the GFOA seal matters to them. In Oakland's case, where they are currently making the budget more accessible, possible they'd be more excited by a seal that called out that work specifically, rather than it becoming a new part of the existing award (a much more "quiet" recognition). I know, let's just do all of the above! :)

[kaitlin]

Well, I guess I don't think that the responsibility for certifying transparency should be solely housed within any organization. Also, in a lot of the models that have surfaced recently, there's some exchange of money to the "certifying" org as well, which I think is problematic.

Mostly I was thinking a transparency seal or badge on this award could be a good transition step to having machine readability be part of the criteria for the award generally. I can imagine a lot of people would be upset if they get this award every year, and adding this criteria broke their 10 year streak or something. So the seal is a way to warn people the new requirement is coming, but also give bonus/brownie points to winners already implementing it.

[daguar]

@kaitlin, your concerns make a lot of sense, but I think they shouldn't be an issue in the particular context of the GFOA.

1. GFOA is a fairly established institution with many existing stakeholders, so making this a formal criterion is likely to involve ample discussion, deliberation, education, and possibly even a "roll-in" stage. I certainly don't foresee people losing their certification suddenly.
2. The power of adding this as a criterion to GFOA's certification is that it's already something municipalities care about receiving. This institutional power can't really be substituted, in my opinion. (I see this as the institutional-hack equivalent of "going where the users are.")

[kaitlin]

I think I'm in overall agreement, although I would be a lot more motivated to work on something if I knew we had a contact who would at least listen to our pitch...

[kaitlin]

Just fyi, according to a recent winner of this award, open data and electronic presentation are not distinct criteria in the current GFOA rating system but most judges factor those into the “Understandability and Usability” section of the scale. So they don't consider machine readability per se, but whether it's available on an existing open data portal, for instance.

[rebeccawilliams]

This could be a model for this: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/04/28/asking-for-top-level-changes-to-help-boost-local-financial-transparency/