IT Commitments: Campaign Promises and the First 30 Days
Target: Lobbying Transparency
As of June, when Emanuel marked 30 days as mayor of Chicago, the city has made some progress on the pillars of his platforms. A recurring theme is the use of publicly posted data to improve transparency, efficiency and accountability for city government operations, with a particular emphasis on enhancing the way it collects lobbying data, increasing the amount of available information and decreasing inefficiencies, and posting it online in a searchable format. In fact, the city has posted eight separate lobbying-related datasets to its data portal.
"I am committed to changing the way city government does business," Mayor Emanuel said in a press release [PDF] about the lobbying data. "It's now easy for the public to find and track extensive information about lobbying activities in this city, including gifts, compensation and expenditures."
Technological Involvement
Mayor Emanuel also highlighted the steps his administration has taken over the past 30 days in order to address the core challenges facing the city and build a better government for Chicago.
Looking through the Emanuel administration's list of achievement in its first 30 days [PDF], I feel that many of them have implications for state and local IT.
Some of them explicitly involve technology. In addition to the lobbying data, several of the administration's other initiatives rely on posting information to the City of Chicago's Data Portal to improve transparency and access to data, on everything from performance benchmarks for city services, to the city's budget -- the 2011 Appropriation Ordinance -- in both human- and machine-readable formats.
Another initiative that relies on technology is the Tax Increment Finance (TIF) Reform Task Force, which solicits citizen-contributed ideas, and releases machine-readable data towards its goal of improving transparency and efficiency to the TIF system, a "special funding tool used by the City of Chicago to promote public and private investment across the city."
Technological Implications
Other achievements touted by the Emanuel administration have implications for IT spending. The administration cut $75 million from the 2011 budget, much of it through improving grants management, merging overlapping functions across departments, and improving procurement. While in some cases, this may represent a potential loss of opportunity (such as the freezing of non-essential contract spending), other efforts to consolidate functions can produce opportunities to streamline and integrate systems.
In similar fashion, the mayor's office touted another $75 million in savings in the FY 2012 Chicago Public Schools budget, with impacts to IT vendors in the form of reduced equipment budgets for non-teaching staff and other cuts to administrative and non-classroom functions.
However, the administration is also in the process of developing a new teacher evaluation system, which will require the ability to collect and assess data and generate report cards, not only on teacher performance, but on the teacher training and development programs that support them.
Rounding out the trend, the adminstration released its report on collaboration opportunites between Chicago and Cook County [PDF]. Its promise of potential annual savings of $140 million represent either direct opportunities for IT vendors (such as the centralization of energy management), to changing the way IT products and services are procured (through expanded joint purchasing between city and county).
Additionally, the administration established the Internet Essentials public-private partnership with Comcast to help expand home broadband access to families of children receiving free school lunches, as well as increased training and education.
Technology Leadership
Additionally, during his first 90 days, Emanuel named Chicago's technology leadership team and announced an overhaul of the city's information offices. To make Chicago's data management more efficient and allow it to respond effectively to taxpayers' needs, the Department of Information Technology will become part of the city's budget office.
Emanuel selected John Tolva, director of citizenship and technology for IBM, to lead City Hall's innovation and technology initiatives as chief technology officer. He will work closely with Jason DeHaan, who will continue as chief information officer, and Brett Goldstein, who will become chief data officer.
Analyst Take
Overall, Mayor Emanuel, like former Mayor Daley, sees the importance and the role IT has in city government. Major procurement reform and transparency efforts will dominate the IT efforts early on in his agenda. Look for IT to play a major role in consolidation activities as well efficiency initiatives in the next few fiscal years.
To see a full list of the 100-Day goals, please see the Chicago 2011 Transition Report. [PDF]
Originally published on GovWin.com.