Dear Candidate,



We are Code Island, the Code for America Rhode Island Brigade. We are part of a national movement of citizens, technologists, and public servants working together to improve the quality of life in the State of Rhode Island through the use of information and technology. Our members from across the state have collaborated to prepare the 2014 Providence Mayoral Open Data Survey.

Since creating the Open Providence Commission for Transparency and Accountability in 2011 and launching the City’s Open Data Portal and Open Meeting Portal in 2013, Providence has improved the availability of government data and its capability to host it. However, as our D+ rating in transparency from RIPIRG last year indicates, there is room for improvement.

Democracy is rooted in a historic tradition of transparency and public service, and open data policy will bring that tradition into the 21st century. Open data benefits people, even if they don’t use technology themselves. Residents become better informed by stronger journalism. Neighborhood groups and nonprofits have better access to resources to serve people in their community. Government departments increase efficiency through inter-departmental communication and data-driven decisions.

Finally, open data enables commercial businesses and social entrepreneurs to pursue new enterprises, which create new jobs and increase the tax base. We hope the next mayor of Providence will support an open data policy as part of a transparent, efficient and innovative city government. Open data will enable our residents and communities to benefit from the wide range of valuable data our city government already maintains. A growing number of cities have passed open data legislation.

Included with this letter is a short questionnaire regarding open data. Please tell us your thoughts on the best open data policy for the City of Providence government by October 10, 2014. We have sent this request to all mayoral candidates and will publish the responses prior to the general election at http://code-island.org/.

If you are unfamiliar with open data, we have also provided a short FAQ . We are also happy to answer any questions at census@code-island.org.

Thank you for your consideration, The Members of Code Island.

Topic 1: Investment in Technology to Promote Innovation

According to budget information available on the City of Providence’s Open Data Portal, the Information Technology budget for the city makes up barely half of one percent (0.57%) of the city’s expenditures (2013 actual and 2014 Budget). This past summer, the City Council and Mayor approved a FY 2015 budget of $458 million, which is an increase of almost 2% compared to 2014. At the same time, the Information Technology budget was cut by almost 5% to barely $2.5 million.

The City of Boston has an FY 2015 Operating Budget of $2.73 billion, with $26.6 million for Information Technology, making up almost a full percent (0.97%) of their budget (almost twice the percentage Providence spends). The City of Fort Lauderdale, FL , which is slightly smaller than Providence, has an FY2015 operating budget of $571,805,176, with $15,261,924 budgeted for their Information Technology Services Department, making up over two and a half percent (2.66%) of their budget (almost five times Providence). They project to have approximately 70 IT staff, almost six times Providence’s team of 12. Although there are some IT staff scattered around other departments in the city, the difference is significant.

What do you think of the current levels of investment in information technology?

What would you propose as a strategy related to technology investment for your administration?

Topic 2: Utilizing Our Open Data Portal to Promote Entrepreneurship

Open sharing of information has helped improve the relationship between citizens and government and promotes economic development and social entrepreneurship. Last year the City of Providence took an important step towards sharing public information when the CIO requested approval to engage the services of Socrata, Inc. to host the City’s online Open Data Portal. Socrata software is used by large municipalities like Chicago and San Francisco to host large sets of “machine-readable” public data, meaning it can be easily read and organized by a computer, which can spur economic development. Weather.com is an example of entrepreneurship based on Open Government Data, using data from the National Weather Service.

OpportunitySpace.org, is a local small business using Providence, Pawtucket, Cumberland and Central Falls property records to pair investors with available properties. But data sets used by OpportunitySpace aren’t on the Providence Open Data Portal. Only some data sets like information related to the budget, city employee salaries, community gardens and the citywide paving project are available. While interesting, these data sets are static and are only a tiny subset of information that the city is permitted to publish. If data sets are going to be useful to government and its citizens, they need to be dynamic. There is little or no valuable data on crime incidents, property violations or financial transactions, all of which are published by the City of Boston on their Socrata platform. Would you publish all detailed data that is considered public information on the Open Data Portal related to:

Crime Incidents?

Building and Property Violations?

Checkbook Level Financial Data?

Building Permits?

Property Information (all addresses and associated data)?

Business Licenses?

Current laws protecting personal privacy would still apply to all information released under an open data policy. For datasets controlled by the city that are subject to disclosure under the Access to Public Records Act, do you support a default policy that such datasets be proactively made available online according to commonly accepted open data guidelines (see FAQ for details)?

Feel free to expand on your answer immediately above:

Beyond this protected information, what specific data sets do you feel should be restricted for public access? Please explain your position, including the time frame within which you feel it would be reasonable to provide existing data sets and such data sets in the future, and the process you will use to determine if a dataset should be made public. Feel free to elaborate on things you would do as mayor to make city data “open.”

Topic 3: Comprehensive Open Data Strategy

Looking forward, in order to prepare all city departments to embrace Open Data Policy, the software systems that are used in all areas of city operations need to be modernized. For a Mayor that is committed to a strong Open Data Policy, it is imperative that every new technology RFP require vendors to build systems that are built to publish machine-readable data directly to our Open Data Portal. Otherwise our data is inaccessible, even though it belongs to the city.

As mayor, would you include Open Systems as a standard in technology system-related RFPs?

Feel free to expand on your answer immediately above:

Topic 4: Supporting a “Learning City Hall” for the 21st Century

Government rarely has a reputation for being innovative. Things seem like they are done the same way they were done decades ago. Even when public servants working in City Hall have new ideas or suggestions for improving processes, there is not a clear method of sharing their perspective, and so change is often hard to come by. From rigid management practices to rigid job descriptions, there are many barriers to innovation inside of City Hall. In the 21st Century, with resources constrained and with more demands upon them, a City Hall and its employees must be capable of making adjustments, both small and large, as new technologies are adopted and new skills are required to maintain efficiency and save taxpayer dollars. Most job descriptions in City Hall are rarely modified.

As mayor, what would you do to make sure that your staff and the employees of City Hall are prepared and expected to adopt new technologies and learn new processes so opportunities to perform more effectively for the citizens of Providence can be taken advantage of?

What do you see as the barriers to improving efficiency in City Hall and how will you overcome them?

Topic 5: High Performance Providence - A City With Pride

The concept of Open Data is not only about government transparency. It provides an incentive and makes it possible to increase performance. As mentioned in IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge report for Providence written in 2011, our city has few performance indicators within or across departments. The City of Fort Lauderdale has full time Performance Analysts responsible for tracking 142 performance indicators. Some examples include: resident satisfaction with city services (via an annual survey), the number of new employees receiving Lean/Six Sigma certifications, the number of budget transfers researched and approved within two business days and the number of departmental cross-sectional performance meetings. Indicators are published at least annually. Moving the needle on these indicators make a city more attractive for potential residents and increases the pride of current residents. At one time there was a system called ProvStat that tracked some performance indicators, but it no longer exists. The new mayor of the City of Providence has an opportunity to improve our city and the performance of City Hall, but the city must start tracking data in collaboration with department heads and staff.

What would be your strategy for tracking data with a goal of improving performance for the betterment of Providence?

Frequently Asked Questions about open data

What is Open Data?

Most often, ‘open data’ refers to the idea that data controlled by a government body should be accessible to citizens and other government bodies in a structured format. In an open structured format, computer programs can readily understand and process the data. For example, a CSV is an open structured format, while a PDF is not. Open data policies reduce cost and technology barriers, which limit citizens’ access to government data. The nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation publishes best practices for open data policies.

What is an Open Standard?

In the context of open data, an open standard typically refers to a data format whose specification is freely available to be read and implemented by anybody. Data available in an open standard is often the most accessible to analysts, journalists, and programmers, as anybody can access the tools and information needed to work with that data. Because of this, open standards often support competitive markets of applications and organizations that perform similar services on similar types of data.

Do City reports provide access to city data?

Not to the level that open data does. A report published by the city represents a finished presentation of data. The report includes analysis, formatting and layout, and commentary that is meant to be read by people, and often meant to be read by a certain audience. While these presentations of data are valuable, they usually do not provide the raw, structured data required by others who wish to create their own analyses, presentations, or new applications.

Which cities officially support open data?

The Sunlight Foundation maintains a list of open data policies A report by the San Diego Data Bank recently analyzed the policies of 8 major US and Canadian cities that have implemented open data programs in the last seven years. These cities include Austin, Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. At the federal level, the White House has also implemented an open data policy for the executive branch.