Open Performance Supplants Open Data in Maryland’s Most Populous County
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Montgomery County’s government is holding itself accountable by publicly tracking department performance toward executive goals.
WASHINGTON — Located just outside the nation’s capital, Montgomery County is Maryland’s most populous jurisdiction, with more than 1 million residents and a median household income of $98,326.
For years, it’s been known as a leader in the delivery of county services including affordable housing and access to healthcare for uninsured children.
Now, Montgomery is taking stats it started recording a decade ago and sharing them across departments to establish transparent performance measurements—an effort larger and more mature than the straightforward open data programs of many states.
“From the beginning it’s been structured very well and supported by executive leadership,” said Ewan Simpson, the Northeast territory manager for Seattle-based cloud software company Socrata, which has worked with the county on its data analytics. “It wasn’t just a mandate. It’s been part of the way Montgomery County governs.”
Montgomery’s CountyStat program, using Socrata Open Performance, is one of the company’s grandest deployments nationally, according to Simpson.
Modeled after the data analytics programs spearheaded by Martin O’Malley, when he was mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, the sheer volume of data is impressive, Simpson said.
A large, well-to-do county, Montgomery’s successes might be hard for smaller local governments with fewer resources to duplicate, but it is a testament to a proactive data philosophy.
The CountyStat team is focused on cross-departmental initiatives with data openness and storytelling inviting government departments to increasingly share data.
Crossing student performance data on school expulsions, truancy, graduation and bullying with public safety numbers on youth violent crimes and gang prosecutions spawned a juvenile development initiative. A police group mentoring troubled teens with knowledge of the county’s most violent neighborhoods for youth can better focus its efforts accordingly.
“Bringing together data stakeholders can catalyze better department planning,” Simpson said. “Larger communities can have better access to focused data helpful in day-to-day operations.”
Reducing crime is a county goal, but it’s not isolated. Cross-referencing data on contributing factors like economic development and income disparities gives the county greater control than if it only relied on emergency response time data, which is still readily available.
Socrata has replaced early 2000s drop-down menus with dynamic, automated dashboards making it clearer to citizens how close various departments are to hitting performance goals prioritizes by the county executive.
Officials are held accountable, they’re driven to do better and impactful policy and program changes are made more likely, Simpson said.
Election returns and county budgets are open to public perusal, and the county can monitor how it’s trending in various ways.
This early into the release, internal reporting primarily benefits the CountyStat team in terms of saving time.
“I think their approach is to really tell the full story,” Simpson said. “Where we’re going toward and we’re doing a better job of is we can update the data with greater frequency—automating as frequently as the county wants.”
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