Help with access to budgets at local and/or state level

[Paul Walsh]

Hi all,

My name is Paul Walsh, I am an Australian, from Sydney, and I've been living overseas in Israel for the last 7 years.

I am currently leading the development of a project here in Israel, building a web app and API for storing and comparing budgetary data. The code and design is open source, we are 5 months into a 7-8 month project. ( https://github.com/hasadna/omuni-budget )

This project is an initiative of the Public Knowledge Workshop ( a non-profit for government data transparency - http://www.hasadna.org.il/en/ ), and is financially backed by Google Israel, the Israel Democracy Institute, and others.

At this stage of the project, the goal is specifically to work with the budgetary data of all the municipalities in Israel (there are 255), going back 5-10 years.

The important thing about our project (which differentiates it from other projects like Open Spending) is the ability to compare data over time, and across different "entities" - municipalities in this case. This of course requires knowledge of some type of structure to a given set of budgets.

Anyway, I have a personal interest in taking what we have done, and after we launch the current version in Israel, setting up another instance using budget data at the local or state level in Australia. I have been in contact with several government bodies at all levels of government in Australia, and I am surprised that, until now, it is very hard to get any useful information at all.

I wonder if anyone on the mailing list here is able to help with any of these questions:

• Do all states, or, even we can focus on one, like NSW, have some accessible guidelines for how their local government bodies should declare budgets? Surely, there must be *some* type of structure to the procedure, at least for auditing purposes.
• Or similarly, does the federal government have such guidelines for how the states report budgets? Specifically, do they expect the budgets to follow some type of structure?
• The budget data on various local government websites I have checked out is severely lacking - general overview type stuff in PDF or Word docs. Surely, at least internally, and I'd further assume, in front of the state they report to - they must have a more structured and complete ledger. Is my assumption wrong? Shouldn't such information be available, under either the federal or state freedom of information act?

I'd really appreciate any help.

Thanks,

Paul.

[Paul Walsh]

Hi all,

I have gained some more info from the Division of Local Government of New South Wales, on how local govt. budgets are structured, and how local govts. need to present data to the state.

There is no fixed structure, but it looks structured enough to make a reasonable taxonomy to apply across local govts. in New South Wales.

The Division of Local Government also maintains a dataset going back several years with comparative data points across local govts. in New South Wales. It is all in PDF, and this data, combined with budget data, can provide the backbone of a solid comparative system.

I am also in contact with the Sutherland Shire council, and I am making (slow) progress getting access to more budget data sources there.

If anyone on the list is interested in helping with this project, it would be great.

Local government data is really important - arguably more so than federal data - as it is very close to our daily lives. Local government budget data can be of use especially to small ad-hoc groups that rally around local issues, for journalists, and for "concerned citizens".

I am hoping to be able to start actively on this project from August, after I launch the first version of the web app + API here in Israel.

If you are interested in helping, I think the following areas are needed:

* content, and data collation

* coding - if you want to help commit upstream to our Open Budget codebase, we write in Python and Javascript

* entity relations - getting in content with a bunch of local govts. to get access to real data.

Feel free to contact me here, or directly via email.

Thanks,

Paul

[Rosie Williams]

Hi Paul, 

I developed a system to display the Australian federal budget in a searchable online database at BudgetAus.

In the wake of interest in parliamentarians expenses scandals here in Australia I have set up a forum at InfoAus to capture interest in improving the data that is published by government on this and other issues. Latest events also at the InfoAus Blog,  @budget_aus or #BudgetAus.

I'll be holding monthly Twitterchats 8pm DST (7pm Brisbane) 2nd Tue each month on budget transparency topics.

I invite you and anyone else interested to sign up for the forum and contribute as desired. 

Hope you can make it along. 

cheers

Rosie Williams

[Paul Walsh]

Hi,

I'm giving this a bump because it is still relevant, and I'd love to move forward with my modifications to the codebase with some data from Australia.

So, again, if anyone can help with accessing budgetary data at either the state or local level, please contact me.