What's Up With OPEN DATA and Government?

Intro:  Code for America has a chapter here in Hawaii.  Although it is based on Oahu, I still manage to keep up with their activity from here on Maui.

Watching Over State Legislator and Employee Spending

Many of you database developers may wonder in an existential sense if there is anything out there beyond the systems we support each day.  Yes, the government sector alone has a myriad of information that is of the public domain that is a vital link to citizen awareness of their own governance.

The self-description of the CfA Brigade in Hawaii introduces them as:

This group [sic. Hawaii CfA Brigade] is for all those interested in open data, data access, apps, big data, data visualization, APIs and anything related to civic engagement and collaborative technologies.

In the news:  The personal allowance budgets of lawmakers (and their staff) who represent Hawaii are now available for public review.  More details on the committee decisions that led to this is detailed in a Civil Beat article on lawmaker allowance spending reviews.

A look at how you can query and download some of these figures for your own review is explained below in the next section.

How to Export Data from the Legislator Allowance Tool

Legislative Allowance Tool @khon2

The site that provides this information is hosted at:

http://khon2.com/legislative-allowance-tool/

1. The first step is to select the initial query parameters to collect the larger set of information you are querying.


2. Look for the "Download" link next to the output report grid and select it to initiate the generation of a comma-separated-value file for downloading to your local computer.

3. The .csv text file downloaded from the tool can be ingested into any relational database or aggregation system for further research and analysis.

An example comma separated value (.csv) file format opened using spreadsheet software:

What the Data Looks Like from the Web App Tool

Give it a try.  Even if you aren't super savvy at SQL or database technology, even a spreadsheet formula or two transforms this raw data into a source of accountability as the Hawaii State Ethics committee probably also believes in as well.  Check it out.