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@ 2019. Copyright. Questica. All Rights Reserved. questica.com Taking Government Budget Transparency and Engagement to the Next Level

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Taking GovernmentBudget Transparencyand Engagement to the Next Level

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Taking Government Budget Transparencyand Engagement to the Next Level

Transparency is a core value of government according to the Government FinanceOfficers Association.1 In particular, being transparent about the budgeting process is vital for any government agency to earn the trust of its citizens.

While publishing an annual budget book or posting data online are considered best practices, it may not be enough to engage your citizens. Making financial data easy to access and understand, during all phases of the budget process, will build the trust you want to cultivate with citizens and stakeholders, and create an opportunity to collaborate and solve problems together.

As the demand for transparency increases,your local government may have to ask:

• Are we doing enough to become a transparent local government?

• How can we show citizens how public money is spent, in a format they will understand?

• How can we involve citizens in the budget decision-making process and create opportunities for their feedback?

What are the benefits oftransparency?

The budget is the most important policy document your government agency will produce because it answers questions about how money is raised and spent in the community. Citizens look at the budget to form their perception of your government’seffectiveness in relation to the community issues that are of the greatest importance to them. Your budget can act as a bridge to greater citizen trust and engagement.

While there is no commonly agreed upon definition of transparency, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) summarizes the core concept by saying: “budget transparency means being fully open with people about how public money is raised and used.”2 Therefore, transparency involves making your financial data publicly available so that citizens can see and understand how you are spending money.

In addition, transparency can benefit yourgovernment agency as much as the people you represent. Engaging citizens in the budget process can help you earn their trust, as well as improve their perception of your government’s performance and merit to the community.

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When citizens trust their local government, they are more likely to engage with the government and become involved in the community. Moreover, increased public participation provides an opportunity for your government to educate, inform and learn from your citizens.

The benefits of transparency includes:

Earn and maintain citizen trust

By sharing financial information with the public, citizens are more willing to trust and engage with their local government. According to a 2017 Gallup survey, 72% of U.S. citizens have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in their local government.3 This is great news for your local government and presents an opportunity to continue building on existing citizen confidence.

Increase community involvement

When a community lacks public participation,cynicism and lack of trust in your governmentagency is likely to rise. Your local governmenthas to take deliberate steps to engage yourcitizens in the budget process. Meaningfulpublic participation in the budget can helpcitizens understand the challenges you faceand the tough choices that have to be madeabout where money is spent.

Understand community needs

Transparency creates better informed andeducated citizens who will be more likely toparticipate in a two-way dialogue with youabout the budget. With their insights andideas about the services and facilities mostneeded in the community, you can worktogether to ensure the most importantpriorities are flagged for action.

Educate citizens

When citizens are engaged with the government, you have an opportunity to educate them about the community projects you are working on and high-light the successes your government agency hasachieved. This shows citizens the good choices you have made on their behalf and can encourage their support on other important projects.

Implementing budget transparency

More than ever the pressure to become atransparent local government is evident, but is your local government agency on the right track to being transparent? What steps has your local government taken to be transparent? There are a number of simple ways to implement budget transparency including:

Public reports

By issuing an annual report or digital budgetbook, you can provide citizens with amessage from government leaders, high-level financial information, a description ofthe budget process, project summaries andsuccess stories.

Website

A dedicated section on your agency’s websitecan include everything from downloadablebudget documents, project summaries,infographics, and interactive tools such asonline budget visualizations and simulatortools. This is an opportunity to get feedbackfrom citizens by inviting them to answer apoll and submit questions or comments.

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Social media

Social media already has a degree of openness and transparency that builds on the public’s perception of your government agency. Budget information can be shared to a large number of citizens, which can potentially start conversations about the budget and other community issues.

Surveys and/or budget simulators

Conducted by mail, phone, online or in person, a survey or interactive budget simulator tool will provide a snapshot of citizen opinions on the budget or issues related to the budget. A pioneer in the public sector budget engagement space is Balancing Act, who provides online budget simulation and taxpayer receipt software.

Advisory board or committee

Citizens representing different community interests and groups are invited by yourgovernment agency to provide input during the budgeting process.

Workshops

Citizens are invited by your government agency to participate in a meeting where the budget is shared and public feedback and debate is encouraged.

As simple as these transparency methods may be to implement, the disadvantage is that it might not be enough to engage citizens. Documents and reports contain static information that is old uponpublication, while committees or workshops may only cater to special interest groups and not accurately reflect the opinions of the community. In addition, you may need to execute more than one method to increase public participation which could be costly and take a considerable amount of time.

Open data

Improving openness and transparency has been a priority for government agencies since before the age of the internet. However, over the last decade new legislation and public policies have been introduced by various governments to advance the creation of “cities led by governments that empower residents through access to information,technology, and participatory practice.”4 At theheart of this movement is open data.

What is open data?

Open data is any content that “can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose.”5

Governments with open data policies can create online portals where the public can access datasets of information collected by the government on everything from flu activity to the number of parking tickets issued last year. The data is in a machine-readable format, such as a .csv or .xml file format, and available for citizens to freely download, use and distribute, without limitations or restrictions. Open data is valued for showing citizens government activity and can promote accountability, credibility and public engagement.

However, research by the Association of Government Accountants acknowledges that “the vastness of the financial information governments issue makes it extremely difficult for users of that information to isolate the information pertinent to their needs. The vastness also impairs the ability toeasily obtain a meaningful understanding ofwhat the information portrays.”6

Unfortunately, unless they have an accounting degree, most citizens won’t have the ability to make sense of the complex financial data you publish or know how to extract the information they want from your datasets. Data alone can’t tell citizens howmoney was spent and what the outcome wasof that spending decision. You may unintentionally lose public trust by confusing citizens or causing a misunderstanding.

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If the goal of local government is to demonstrate accountability and to increase public participation, perhaps the shortcomings of the traditional methods of citizen engagement and implementing open data suggest that these strategies are not enough to improve transparency. There’s a story in your financial data, but a PDF, spreadsheet or dataset can’t sufficiently communicate the budget story your local government is trying to tell. To earn the trust of citizens, your local government may have to aim for smarter transparency to make an effective connection.

Data visualization software

Three ways of making your complex financialdata easier for citizens to understand is to make the data visual, searchable and shareable. In particular, data visualization software allows your local government to share financial information with citizens in an educational and interactive format during the budgeting process, taking open-ness and transparency to a new level.

Visual

A visual is “a tool for your eyes and brain to perceive what lies beyond their natural reach.”7

In this regard, data visualization software makes complex data more accessible by presenting it in a graphic format, such as graphs, bubbles or maps, enabling citizens to gain a deeper and quicker understanding of the information. When citizens understand the budget, they will be more inclined to participate in public discussions.

Searchable

With data visualization, financial information that was hidden in a spreadsheet or lost in hundreds of datasets can be searched quickly and easily. Citizens can manipulate data by filtering and drilling down to the budget information of greatest interest to them on social media channels and increase your reach to citizens.

Shareable

Data visualization tools make it simple for you to share the budgeting process with the public. They enable you to display the graphics on your website along with other compelling information that tells the budget story, such as stories, photos or videos. In addition, you can share a link to your websiteon social media channels and increase yourreach to citizens.

The next level of budgettransparency

Without question, technology is essential tosmarter budget transparency, as it enablesyour local government to share financialinformation with citizens and collaborate withthem like never before. Using datavisualization software translates yourcomplex financial data into a visual storyabout your budget citizens understand andsupport.

The budget is the most important policy yourlocal government will develop each year. Asthe demand for transparency increases, isyour local government doing enough to sharethe information citizens expect? Is thefinancial data you are sharing current andeasy to understand?

By using new technology like data visualization software and budget simulator tools to share financial data and include citizens in the budgeting process, your local government will take budget transparency to the next level. These tools makes complex financial data visual, searchable and shareable. You will not only build a bridge to greater citizen trust andengagement, but will be collaborating withcitizens like never before to find solutions forthe community.

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With a population of approximately 319,000 residents, the City of Riverside is the 12th largest city in California. The City established a two-year budget within the context of a five-year plan. That budget, including both the operating budget and the capital budget, comes to $1.08 billion in 2018/19 and $1.12 billion in 2019/20.

A Questica customer since 2011, the City hadbeen successfully using Questica Budget’sOperating and Salaries modules. In 2017,Riverside adopted Questica’s OpenBook datavisualization software to become more transparent with citizens.

Leveraging the seamless integration between Questica Budget and Questica OpenBook, Riverside launched an online budget portal with easy-to-understand visualizations of their operating budget, capital improvement plans budget, and much more. The data is searchable, visual and shareable, offering citizens a deeper understanding of the City’s goals for the community.

The City of Riverside also took advantage of OpenBook’s Project Explorer feature to create an interactive visual map that displays capital projects, actual spending, funding sources, milestones and project documentation, including images, videos and plans. OpenBook’s Project Explorer allows local governments to display infrastructure projects through a dynamic data visualization tool easily accessible by citizens that immediately updates when any changes or additions are made to the budget.

Case Study:The City of Riverside, California

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Established in 1905, the City of Largo began as a rural farming community and eventually developed into a densely pop-ulated suburb. It is now the fourth largest city in the Tampa Bay area.• Population: 84,500• Financial System: American Data Group• Number of Employees: 1,000

The City of Largo’s Office of Budget Management suffered from a cumbersome workflow process, reliance on static spreadsheets, repetitive manual entry and a financial system that couldn’t managemultiple budget scenarios. The City commissioners also wanted to share budget information with citizens in a format that was accessible and easy to understand.

By implementing Questica Budget’s Operating, Salary and Capital modules, the City of Largo now has a dynamic budgeting and forecasting system that has streamlined their budget preparation process. To achieve their goal of becoming more transparent with citizens, the City used Questica’s OpenBook data visualization software to share budget and capital project information. Citizens can explore the budget visually with interactive charts, tables, graphics, and informational pop-ups.

In addition, the City of Largo used OpenBook’s Project Explorer feature to create an interactive map of their capital projects. Citizens can review each capital project to learn more about the project, as well as costs, funding and other related information.

The City of Largo also took advantage of Questica’s partnership with Balancing Act, a budget simula-tion tool that seamlessly integrates with Questica Budget and OpenBook. With Balancing Act, citizens can drill-down into the City’s budget categoriesand through the simulation get hands-onexperience with what it’s like to balance theCity’s budget.

Case Study:The City of Largo, Florida

“If we can fnd out what the public cares about, and translate that into budget impacts, while driving them to use OpenBook, which is interactive and easy-to-use; that would connect all the dots.” -- Meridy Semones, Manager, Office of Management & Budget, City of Largo

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About Questica For over 20 years, Questica been working with public sector organizations - governments, hospitals and healthcare facilities, colleges and universities, K-12 schools and non-profits - to better enable data-driven budgeting and decision-making, while increasing data accuracy, saving time and improving stakeholder trust. Our customers are using our Questica Budget suite to drive budget transformation by creating a single source of data truth.

Over 700 organizations across North America in 48 states and 11 provinces/territories have oopted for smarter planning, budgeting, performance measures, management, reporting, transparency and engagement with our software solutions. To learn more about Questica and how our software solutions can help your organization – check out our resources and news/blog sections, or request a demo today!

Questica is part of the GTY Technology group of companies (NASDAQ: GTYH).

[email protected]

Questica Budget is a powerful, multi-user and multi-year budget preparation and management software suite that helps your public sector organi-zation run operating, salary and capital budgets with accuracy and efficiency. Integrating with dozens of financial systems, Questica Budget has everything you need in one place to develop, track, monitor and adjust your budget, plus generate custom reports, create what-if scenarios, and develop complex budget formulas with our new Advanced Calculation Engine. Imagine no longer having to enter data into error-prone Excel spreadsheets, and having time to analyze and plan for the budget.

In addition, our Questica OpenBook transparency and data visualization software makes sharing financial information effortless. Your stakeholders will have a better understanding of your budgeting goals when the budget is brilliantly visualized with descriptive text, informational pop-ups, charts and tables. Both tools integrate with our partner Balancing Act’s budget simulation and citizen engagement tool.

Questica Performance allows your organization to track and measure the performance of unlimited budget and non-budget KPIs with a system of programs and scorecards to ensure that your organization is meeting important goals and objectives. With interactive analytic tools, you can drill down to specific strategies, programs and initiatives to see where changes or improvements need to be made to reach peak performance.

To learn more about Questica’s products and how our software solutions can help you manage the budget with confidence – watch a product video, read one of our case studies or request a demo today!

References:

1. “Public Engagement in the Budget Process”, Government of Finance Officers Association, September 2018. Retrieved from http://gfoa.org/public-engagement-budget-process

2. “Budget Transparency Toolkit”, Organisation for Economic Co-op-eration and Development, 2017.

3. Justin McCarthy, “Americans Still More Trusting of Local Than State Government”, Gallup, October 8, 2018

4. “Open Cities”, Sunlight Foundation. Accessed from https://sun-lightfoundation.com/policy/open-cities/

5. “Open Data Essentials”, World Bank, 2017. Accessed from http://opendatatoolkit.worldbank.org/en/essentials.html

6. “Bringing Financial Reporting Into the Age of Open Data and Open Government – Three Approaches”, Association of Government Accountants, February 2016. Accessed from https://www.agacg-fm.org/Research-Publications/Online-Library/Research-Reports/Bringing-Financial-Reporting-Into-the-Age-of-Open.aspx

7. Alberto Cairo, “The Functional Art: an Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization” (New Riders: Pearson Education: 2013), page 10.