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Visualizing Budgets

How to share government budgets on the web

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Derek Eder @derekeder

Open Data Web Developer

Owner of DataMade & Co-founder of Open City

Chicago, IL United States

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What are we trying to do?

  1. Show how the taxpayer’s money is spent�
  2. Explain the functions that government performs�
  3. Increase citizen participation�
  4. Further an informed debate on government priorities

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What are we working with?

Image source: http://www.ibtimes.com

2013 United States Federal Budget

Printed book

256 pages

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Transitioning from paper to the web

PDFs and eBooks

Interactive websites

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The user: an average citizen

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How has this been done so far?

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How has this been done so far?

Comparing across departments

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Death & Taxes

2014 USA Federal Budget

Poster

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http://www.timeplots.com/products

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Estonia

2011-2013 State Budget

Bubble chart

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http://meieraha.eu

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Open Oakland

2012 Oakland, CA Budget

Sankey diagram

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http://openbudgetoakland.org/2012-2013-sankey.html

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The New York Times

2011 USA Federal Budget

Treemap

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http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

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How has this been done so far?

Comparing across time

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Solomon Kahn

1976 - 2013 USA Federal Budget

Treemaps for many years

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http://solomonkahn.com/us_budget/

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Arlington Visual Budget

2008 - 2018 Arlington, MA Budget

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http://www.arlingtonvisualbudget.org/

https://github.com/goinvo/Visual-Town-Budget

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Look at Cook

1993 - 2012 Cook County, IL Budget

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http://lookatcook.com

https://github.com/open-city/look-at-cook

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State of Working Washington

2002 - 2013 Washington State Budget

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http://stateofworkingwa.org/budget/

https://github.com/datamade/look-at-washington

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Checkbook NYC

2010 - 2013 New York City Budget

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http://www.checkbooknyc.com/

https://github.com/NYCComptroller/Checkbook

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What we’ve learned so far

  1. Avoid flashy interfaces that obscure the data; use simple charts and tables�
  2. View and compare departments and over time �
  3. Provide simple descriptions�
  4. Allow users to share links to a specific view

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What’s missing?

  • Context�
  • or, “why are we spending money on this?”

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How we get there

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We’re already collecting metrics

Ireland Stat

http://www.irelandstat.gov.ie

City of Chicago performance metrics

http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/narr/foia/key_performance_indicators0.html

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Examples of context

Crime and recidivism rates along with police and jail budgets

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Total cost of healthcare for government employees along with personnel budgets

Debt-to-income ratio along with total budgets

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Getting it right will take time

  1. It will be an iterative process, so start trying now �
  2. Release more open data on government processes�
  3. Test out different contexts, share what works and what doesn’t�
  4. Catalyze development by open sourcing the code

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Release more open data!

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Learn from, and contribute to open source

Arlington Visual Budget �https://github.com/goinvo/Visual-Town-Budget

Checkbook NYC �https://github.com/NYCComptroller/Checkbook

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Look at Cook (that’s mine!) �https://github.com/open-city/look-at-cook

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Thank you

Derek Eder @derekeder

Open Data Web Developer

Owner of DataMade & Co-Founder of Open City

Chicago, IL United States