Iowa Governor Terry Branstad is working to increase the transparency of his office with a new website. The website will allow visitors to track open records requests made to his office. Branstad has come up against criticism in the past for a lack of transparency in his administration and has slowly been working to correctRead… Read more »
Deltek Analyst Joanna Salini reports. Surveillance is one of the more popular techniques used by state and local government entities to combat crime. Surveillance systems are often successful in preventing criminal activity, whether they run from computers, telephones, aerial imagery, or more commonly, video cameras and closed-circuit television cameras. CCTV cameras have become extremely usefulRead… Read more »
The PA Times, published by the American Society of Public Administration, has just issued a special edition called “From Bureaucratic to Cool: A Call for Public Service”. My article on “Crowdsourced Ideas Make Participating in Government Cool Again” describes how government agencies on all levels are turning to Open Innovation platforms to collect the wisdomRead… Read more »
Illegal immigrants will be able to apply for state money to attend American universities in California thanks to a new law signed by California Governor Jerry Brown. Under the terms of the law, illegal immigrants who have attended school in California will be eligible to apply for Cal-Grant aid to continue their educations. Last yearRead… Read more »
Round II: Apps for Metro Chicago Community Round App contest produces more civic minded apps For those of you who may not have heard, Chicago is hosting an application contest using open data produced by the city, counties, and the state. The contest is three rounds each with a different focus. The first round winnerRead… Read more »
Deltek Sr. Analyst Chris Cotner reports. The U.S. Census Bureau released its report on federal aid to the states in September, 2011. Aside from individual data on states of interest, some of the more useful Census data revolves around state budget efficiency. This census data is combined and compared with Deltek’s own state budget dataRead… Read more »
Maryland and Tennessee are working on new open government initiatives. The Maryland General Assembly started its first open government committee yesterday. The committee will study the state’s legislative process and make recommendations on how to improve the overall transparency of the state legislature. In Tennessee, state lawmakers are looking at a new measure that wouldRead… Read more »
The Birmingham Civic Dashboard is a neat project from the City Council that reports the requests made for services from the organisation and visualises them in interesting ways, such as by plotting them on a map. It was funded by NESTA as part of the Make It Local programme, which also produced such excellence asRead… Read more »
First, let’s be clear, I’m not a coder. Not even close. I’m a some-time racquetball player, part-time marketer, and full-time activist. The later two being the reason why I joined up with Code for America. Ever since I realized that America, land of liberty, was an entirely preconceived notion — I’ve found myself pondering theRead… Read more »
Governor Dannel P. Malloy and business leaders from throughout Connecticut have partnered to launch Startup Connecticut, a new initiative to support entrepreneurship throughout the state. Startup Connecticut is the latest in a national effort coordinated by the Startup America Partnership to help small businesses create jobs. Connecticut is the third state to adopt a StartupRead… Read more »