Open Government Data The Economic Benefits of Transparency

By Jackie Benton Published November 2019

In the information age, much of our economy depends on timely and accurate data. Reliable data derived from trusted sources make for better decision-making in business, communities and our personal lives, whether it’s deciding where to purchase a home, which school districts offer the best opportunities or which job markets are the most promising.

And government represents a near-inexhaustible source of useful and important data. From the census to data on tax collections and government spending, federal, state and local governments gather information on virtually every aspect of our lives and the economy.

Shouldn’t they share it?

The concept of government transparency isn’t new — it dates back at least to 1795, when the U.S. Senate first opened its doors to the public. Since the 1966 federal Freedom of Information Act, transparency has been an increasingly important part of government operations in the U.S. But the truly game-changing moment arrived with the internet, which prompted calls for governments across the nation to provide easy electronic access to their data.

This effort evolved out of the open-source movement, which seeks to make software source code open and free for others to use. Proponents believe that, since government databases are created for public benefit using taxpayer dollars, as much of their information as possible should be provided free to the public via the internet. Thanks to today’s technology, it’s possible to organize, aggregate, analyze and share such data quickly and efficiently.

Open Data for Business and Communities

Businesses and nonprofits across the nation are making increasingly extensive use of government data in their daily operations. A company called Rentlogic, for instance, compiles government data from New York City agencies on health and safety issues to give prospective renters a better look at properties they’re considering. Similarly, Best Buy uses federal demographic data to better analyze and understand its customers.

But communities also have used open government data to improve the lives of their residents, in areas ranging from traffic control to housing programs.

“There is so much government data available to the public,” Greenberg says. “We have the Comptroller’s office, the Legislative Budget Board, the Texas Education Agency and then we have local governments posting their financial statements to the web. And that’s just a small part of what is available to us online.”

Greenberg says nonprofit organizations use open government data by analyzing them and then providing the information in context to the constituents they serve. She notes that some nonprofit groups and private companies, such as Zillow and Yelp, export available government data, “mash it up” with their own proprietary data analytics and visualizations, and then post their findings online as a kind of public service.

“One of my goals has been to increase the availability and the usefulness of open data and to have a culture where we start from the standpoint that — barring personally identifiable information or sensitive information about children or where it is a public safety issue — that data will be open and be useful, usable and provided with context,” Greenberg says. “And I think, yes, the Comptroller’s office has been instrumental in accelerating that culture.”

Open Government at the Comptroller's Office

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts has been a national leader in transparency for more than a decade, recognized by entities such as Harvard University with its Innovations in American Government awards.

“Our agency solidly committed to government transparency when we created an online tool, Where the Money Goes, in 2007, enabling the public to search for and download data on state spending by agency, category and vendor,” says Greg Conte, a Data Analysis and Transparency (DAT) Division manager with the Texas Comptroller’s office. “That was quickly followed up with the launch of Where the Money Comes From, our revenue database.”

Those two events marked the beginning of what has become a large collection of datasets on the Comptroller’s website, now maintained by a five-member Transparency Team within DAT dedicated solely to transparency initiatives, both legislatively mandated and agency initiated (Exhibit 1).

EXHIBIT 1: TEXAS COMPTROLLER’S MOST-VIEWED AGENCY TRANSPARENCY WEBPAGES IN 2018

Web Page	Function	Total Pageviews in 2018
Webfile Tracker	Tracks taxes filed with the Comptroller's office through its Webfile online payment system	48,398
State Spending	Where the Money Goes webpage provides data visualizations on spending	29,858
Databases	Database tools covering a variety of subjects	22,192
Datasets	Datasets from a variety of sources	20,490
Tax Allocations	Monthly sales tax allocation summary reports	11,979
Eminent Domain	Eminent domain reporting, with links to the Eminent Domain Database	10,224

Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

The team’s mission centers on providing useful data for policymakers and the public on subjects ranging from local government debt and public pension plans to information about local bond elections, all provided on the agency’s transparency site.

The Transparency Team’s duties include collecting and maintaining transparency data from public entities; creating reports and designing search tools; and serving as points of contact for questions about the data from the public, local governments and state legislators. Under current agency policy, all email inquiries to the team must be acknowledged or answered within eight business hours. The Transparency Team also maintains a toll-free hotline (844-519-5676) to answer general questions or address concerns regarding any of its programs.

Managing open government data for the agency does feel like a balancing act at times, Conte admits.

“First, we must ensure that we don’t expose the agency or taxpayers to any risk from a cybersecurity aspect,” he says. “Second, open government data is not about putting everything online, but being smart about what kind of information we’re putting online. Are we putting out numbers just for the sake of putting out numbers? We want our data to be relevant to the public’s needs.”