Digital

In its new report, California’s independent government watchdog says that it would be more cost-efficient to make state government more accessible by permitting fully remote public meetings, even after the pandemic is over.

In The Government of Tomorrow: Online Meetings, the Little Hoover Commission highlights the benefits of Governor Newsom’s March 2020 Executive Order allowing state boards and commissions to meet via remote technology. Changing accessibility to make public meetings more inclusive by providing remote access would not only save taxpayer dollars, but it would significantly benefit those who have difficulty interacting with the state government such as low-income citizens or physically disabled persons.

“Governor Newsom has long been an advocate of using technology to make government more accessible, “said Commission Chair Pedro Nava, who also serves on the subcommittee on remote work and state government. “He even wrote a book on the subject—Citizenville. Now, the Governor and the Legislature can use proven technology to increase public accessibility and strengthen government accountability.”

The commission’s report also provides results from its survey of state boards—and other commissions—that met remotely during the pandemic. The survey reveals some substantial benefits to the public including:

• More than 90 percent of surveyed agencies reported reduced costs from meeting remotely
• Approximately half of agencies reported better attendance by commission members
• One-third of agencies responded that they meet more often due to remote access
• Approximately half of agencies with witnesses said it is easier to secure high-quality speakers

The Commission strongly advises the Governor and Legislature to make it easier for board and commission members to participate remotely to fully capture the benefits of meeting virtually. The commission also says that action should be taken before September 30—when the Governor’s executive order is rescinded—for these reforms to be the most effective.

State technology officials have jumpstarted a major overhaul of Ca.gov, California’s official website, to unify department sites and simplify access to services.

The initiative is already underway with an announcement on June 17 by Rick Klau, who took helm as California’s Chief Technology Innovation Officer in February. Klau met with tech companies in a vendor forum hosted by the California Department of Technology, saying the goal of the project is to streamline the state’s patchwork website content, design styles, management systems, and IT infrastructure.

Equally important, if not more so, Klau said the work would increase accessibility for online visitors.

“Today there are dozens [of department websites] that are in WordPress and hundreds across the state currently sharing no common infrastructure,” Klau said.

The project builds on the initial redevelopment efforts of CA.gov, when the site was relaunched in 2019 as a prototype under Alpha.ca.gov. State IT leadership hopes to reimagine how digital services are delivered, modernizing California’s digital presence and potentially reworking outdated or languishing Web applications.   The Governor’s May Revise budget proposes $2.3M for a dedicated team to support the effort.  

The work to house state sites under one IT umbrella is comprehensive and extends to frontend and backend infrastructure. Klau said this means taking a holistic approach and unifying not only content management systems, but also content libraries, user interfaces, design languages, tech stacks, and the digital processes connected to CA.gov.

The vision is for users, no matter who they are or what device they’re using, to have quick access to what they need. At the moment, he said too many users visiting department websites get mired in department directories, unnecessary amounts of file downloads, and other technical difficulties.

“We don’t need to force the residents to understand how the state is structured in order to get the piece of content or access to the service that they need,” Klau said. “Making our sites accessible, regardless of how they come to the content is a big area of opportunity.”

California Department of Technology seeks to break down some of the barriers that have plagued users for years, and especially those with disabilities or those limited to slower online connections and smaller mobile devices. Since he left Google to work for the state, Klau’s first projects have centered around improving usability through strategic design. This included an updated content style guide and continued work on California’s Covid-19 vaccination site Covid19.ca.gov.

With the pandemic receding, Klau and his team are returning to the work of redesigning CA.gov, where accessibility will be a cornerstone. The drive toward greater access also supports Gov. Gavin Newsom’s charge to modernize, a move most visible in funding to innovate firefighting and revamp the Department of Motor Vehicles site and services.

Reaching out to tech company representatives, Klau said the project’s large-scale and nuanced needs would likely seed procurement opportunities and in-house work performed by state digital services.

“It’s really important to think of this [project] as two complementary things, there’s the technology, the infrastructure that supports the growing family web properties throughout CA.gov, and then there’s the content and the design itself,” Klau said. “When you see that those are two separate but complimentary things, you can then see the lenses through which there are many opportunities for us to partner with a number of [vendors].”

For more information and updates on the CA.gov website and services redesign, visit News.alpha.ca.gov.

Image: Ca.gov.

Code for America uncovers techniques to increase the reach of services through equitable data use.

There’s nothing more vexatious than wasted efforts. Every year, local governments invest the time, political capital, and troves of dollars for services many never use. It’s defeating and can be a crushing blow for morale, especially when it’s discovered those who might benefit most from such services are unintentionally excluded.

As part of its annual summit, the civic tech group Code for America (CfA) offered a few data-driven tips to increase the service reach of the government. Insights came from “Data for Equity and Justice,” a workshop built around lessons learned from the group’s digital transformation efforts in social safety net programs like Medicaid and food assistance. Eric Giannella, CfA’s data science director, and Eleanor Davis, a CfA senior program manager, led the workshop that taught how equitable data use could improve services.

“We really wanted to start talking about this idea of equity and how data can be a really powerful tool in understanding disparities and in creating services and systems that serve people equitably,” Davis said. “At Code for America, one of our deep focuses is to ensure our products and services are equitable. The intentional use of data is a big part of how we do that.”

Generally speaking, Davis and Gianella said data equity in government means the data departments collect is representational of the communities they serve. The argument is if data is representational government decision-making and service delivery will be also.

“When we say inclusion, we’re really talking about bringing folks who are most impacted by whatever it is we’re looking at into the processes, activities, the decision, and policymaking in a way that intentionally shares power,” Davis said. “Equity is thinking about bringing in an element of fairness or justice.”

Outside ethics “data equity” and inclusion also have administrative and budgetary benefits for governments as well. Davis and Gianella said there is a business case to made for equitable data use. Data equity translates to efficiency. Similar to the eCommerce giant Amazon—who is constantly collecting user data—representational data leads to the creation of targeted programs, hi-demand services, and ultimately measurable performance outcomes. Here, data equity isn’t just about doing good, it’s good business.

The barrier of inaction

Despite benefits, the three-hour long workshop also surfaced common challenges in data equity efforts. The biggest challenge identified had surprisingly little to do with the technical aspects of analyzing and interpreting data and everything to do with taking action.

Attendees, many of whom worked in the public sector, said government had a difficult time starting data equity work due to fears of public reprimand. If data analysis, for example, showed service delivery discrimination some governments worry well-intentioned efforts to improve services would be met with a community backlash. These trust issues, one attendee said, can halt work even before it begins.

Another attendee who worked in education said the typical and one of the most detrimental obstacles he encountered was officials’ inability to follow through with effective data equity measures.

“We’ll set up a commission, committee [an issue] to death, then feel like we achieved something with no actionable results,” he said.

Another workshop participant said the lack of follow-through was equally pernicious in his organization. Governments, he said, often forget to ask themselves if they truly intend to change their organization’s behaviors if presented with new, representative data. Often, overly optimistic expectations are created with studies and data work when it isn’t accompanied by leadership support.

“You need to understand what changes you’re willing to make,” he said. “If we discover that there is an inequitable situation, are we willing then to invest? Or if you’re in a government agency, are you now compelled to do something about it?”

Tips to get started

As an entry point to data equity, Gianella and Davis offered three tips to help governments get started. The takeaways centered on pragmatic approaches and tactics that could be applied in almost any jurisdiction:

1. Don’t let data push you around

Gianella said you don’t have to be intimated or overwhelmed by data. State and local departments can start small, and work with the information they have, and ask questions when data isn’t clear.

“Just start by using the data you already have—people’s age, gender, race, ethnicity, and language preference—and see if, based on the experience you have with survey feedback or program approval if you see any differences across those groups?” Gianella said.

He added organizations shouldn’t worry if initial numbers seem to indicate adverse outcomes or trends. That should be an entry point into a more extensive investigation designed to benefit everyone – governments and the community.

“I think that should kind of be the expectation, Gianella said. “That it’s not adversarial in any way, then it becomes a conversation to get an understanding.”

2. Don’t let data be someone else’s job

The second point the two made underscored the need for data literacy across an organization. Too often, Davis said, those who work with data and those who make decisions about it are two different groups. This can create a gap in what leadership understands about an organization’s operations and the people it serves.

“In so many organizational cultures, there’s a pretty deep divide between folks who work with data and folks who don’t work with data,” Davis said. “What this means is there are only a few people in the organization who deeply understand what data you have and what can be done with it.”

Davis said that ideally, everyone has a basic understanding of data, including what types of data exist in the organization, how data is stored, managed, and how to collaborate with data science folks. This enables thoughtful data questions and responsive action.

“We would really love to advocate and see a culture shift where all staff feel connected to data, and they understand why it’s critical to their work,” Davis said.

3. Lead with curiosity and ask questions

The final piece of advice focused on asking questions that mattered, where staff connects the issues they care about with the data that influence those issues.

“When it comes to working with data, it’s really all about leading with curiosity and asking questions,” Davis said. “So really, at the end of the day, the purpose of the data that we collect and use is for us to get smarter about the work we’re doing, the impact we’re having, and all the ways we can improve.”

O’Reilly said if the Biden Administration and local progressive policymakers fail to apply this one IT industry principle, it could mean the end for some social equity initiatives.

It’s not good enough to just have good ideas—execution matters.

That was the tenet shared by Tim O’Reilly, the tech thought leader and founder of O’Reilly Media, as he spoke to an audience of technologists and government innovators on April 29. O’Reilly took part in a Q&A-styled discussion hosted by the civic tech group Code for America, where he serves as a board member. His focus targeted social equity reform.

O’Reilly said that when it comes to social policies and programs, the litmus test for effective government is the capacity for implementation. Even in our skeptical and partisan world, O’Reilly said efficient implementation has an uncanny and indisputable power to build faith in new ideas and change beliefs.

“I will say that change happens when people believe that things can be different. And changing the way people feel and think and believe about an issue is, in fact, almost the fundamental human act,” O’Reilly said.

In tech, excellence in implementation is an ideology that has enabled the industry to take once obscure products and business models and transform them into billion-dollar companies. The tech industry’s flourish of public support, O’Reilly said, is fueled by its ability to prove its ideas via intuitive design, accessibility, quick response, and the quality and consistent user experiences we now expect.

For social equity, he called on all levels of government to adopt delivery-driven policy-making, a Code for America term for creating policies and programs that are engineered for citizen-consumers. Simply put, this means governments map out the logistical “how” of service delivery before jumping to create new programs, policies, or regulations. Data and testing are critical elements in this framework.

When asked what this means for the Biden Administration, especially after its first 100 days, O’Reilly was straightforward. Finding ideas for social good won’t be the problem, he said; the president’s biggest challenge will be taking the forward-thinking concepts and embodying them within tangible, hand-to-mouth programs.

“The thing that’s so important about this moment is we now have this meeting of policy ideas that are progressive, but the real worry is that if they’re not implemented well, everybody will say, ‘oh, that didn’t work,'” O’Reilly said.

President Biden’s current list of high priorities includes a $2.3 trillion infrastructure jobs plan, funding dedicated to improvements like rebuilding roads, maintaining bridges, and increasing broadband. He has a $1.8 trillion family plan, a bill that would expand preschool and college opportunities, provide family and medical leave, and distribute childcare subsidies.

These two bills accompany initiatives in climate change, immigration, bankruptcy reform, racial equity, and housing.

O’Reilly said delivery is an equally crucial determinant for success at the state, county, and city levels, adding the work demands an interplay of insightful policy and artful technology applications. He advised governments to support IT departments as a safeguard for managing services and making informed decisions. O’Reilly also discouraged the idea that governments only need to be brokers of digital services supplied by the private sector.

“I would say the first thing that we really need to get across is that technological capability should not be outsourced,” O’Reilly said. “We’ve been in the grip of a theory of government that says, ‘this tech stuff is just something you should buy from the outside,’—and while I think it’s really true that the government shouldn’t necessarily be building up this huge capacity and competing with the private sector—government should have the capability to understand and engage.”

The Obama Administration’s first attempts to roll out the Affordable Care Act via Healthcare.gov, the nation’s healthcare insurance exchange, exemplifies the concept. The controversial insurance exchange failed in its initial attempts due to a lack of digital expertise in the federal government. Its eventual launch and successful deployment came only after the White House brought in Silicon Valley talent and institutionalized modern IT management through in-house digital services groups like 18F and the U.S. Digital Service.

“Now at the federal level you have the U.S. Digital Service, you have 18F, you have the Defense Digital Service, where these groups are bringing the capability to come in, meet with a project manager, and say this contract just doesn’t make sense, but here’s how we can go about solving this problem.”

O’Reilly spotlighted the groups as examples local government can emulate. Cities and counties might not have the budget to replicate the groups, but O’Reilly said local jurisdictions could empower their IT staff or IT departments with added authority, resources, and internal support from leadership. Ultimately, he said that this backing translates into a better, data-driven government that produces results.

“We have all these arguments in our country that a [government] program should be this way or that way, and we haven’t interrogated enough if we did what we intended to do,” O’Reilly said.

Code for America, which has assisted dozens of cities and local agencies with digital transformation projects since 2009, will hold its annual summit from June 12-13. Check back here for news coverage of its summit focused on digital solutions for social equity.

The architects of the first phase of the California Cradle-to-Career Data System have submitted the second of three reports outlining plans to connect data across various segments of education to benefit students and to inform educators and legislators in their policy and decision-making.

While California’s education system includes early education, K-12, community colleges and universities, data collected on students are not currently linked. The 2019 California Cradle-to-Career Data System Act set out requirements for the development of the statewide data infrastructure to address disparities and improve student outcomes by leveraging educational, workforce, financial aid and social service data.

Part of the 2019-2020 budget package, the system is supported with $10 million in one-time funds for workgroup planning and initial system development, which is being facilitated by WestEd, a nonprofit in San Francisco.

In December of last year, the workgroup assembled by WestEd recommended three projects: an integrated data system linking records from various state agencies, expansion of CaliforniaColleges.edu to school districts throughout the state, and an upgrade to eTranscript California to include specific skills students acquired through nontraditional learning.

Kathy Booth, WestEd’s project director for educational data and policy, said the pandemic’s devastating effects on the educational system and on students make development and implementation of an integrated system even more critical as educators try to track student outcomes and their need for social supports. She said the planning team, consisting of public and private entities, has put hundreds of hours of work into the project.

“We had more than 200 people in this process working through the minutia,” she said. “All the data is there; it just needs to be linked and made public. All of our partners have been in total agreement. The model is all ready to go. We just need the legislature to say yes.”

With existing data systems currently, students may encounter confusing college application and financial application processes, as well as delays in admissions or unexpected rejections because of inaccurate or inconsistent data. In addition, education leaders and lawmakers cannot easily access student outcome information or other data that could guide policy and close equity gaps.

The plan envisions a system with one-stop shopping for students to select and apply to California public colleges and apply for financial aid, streamlined admissions processing and placement. Students also will be able to opt in to see if they are eligible for state food and medical care services, as well as share documentation on skills or certifications they have acquired, along with their course records.

Educators will be able to track the status of their students’ college and financial aid applications so they can support them during the process. Lawmakers, researchers and advocates will have access to information on the long-term outcomes of students so they can figure out how to spend state funds to address inequities through education, workforce training and social services.

In its March 26 report, the Legislative Analyst’s Office agreed with the administration that an integrated data system is needed and made several recommendations it says are necessary to ensure its success. They include a requirement to use the state Department of Technology’s Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) process to plan, verify and validate the system. PAL was developed to reduce the likelihood of massive tech failures, which have plagued many of the state’s data systems over the past several years.

Booth said that the Department of Technology has been very involved in the planning efforts and will recommend the appropriate procurement process once the system is under way. She also emphasized that the planning team has recommended a proof-of-concept pilot project – a teacher retention dashboard to help state policymakers better understand and address teacher shortages, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. In addition to the pilot, a five-year implementation process is estimated to cost between $15 million and $20 million annually.

WestEd’s final report is expected June 30.

A new data system to monitor homelessness aims to inform funding and policies for California social services.

California unveiled a potentially groundbreaking website to analyze its homelessness crisis. The site is part of a new system to measure the impacts of homelessness, identify contributing factors, and chronicle homeless support initiatives.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the Homeless Data Integration System (HDIS) on April 7, describing the site’s launch as part of the state’s ongoing campaign to curb housing insecurity. Newsom said the system will support policymakers and the public by providing a comprehensive analysis and an overview of initiatives underway to combat the problem.

“You can’t fix what you can’t measure and having a statewide data system will help us determine what’s working and what isn’t, the important insight we can use to create accountability and strengthen our response going forward,” Newsom said in a release.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), reported California had a 6.8 percent increase in homelessness from 2019 and 2020 and a 16.2 percent increase between 2007 and 2020. The spike in homelessness is the greatest increase for any state in the US. California also has the most homeless residents at an estimated 161,000, according to the HDIS site.

The Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC) developed the system that integrates data from California’s “Continuums of Care,” a group of 44 planning organizations that facilitate services for homelessness. The HCFC worked with the IT vendor Plante Moran to build the data system over the course of 15 weeks and at a cost of $1.2 million.

State officials believe the single repository for data will enable agencies to answer previously unanswerable questions about what homeless services are used, who is accessing those services, and what interventions are most effective. This information will be coupled with data recording homelessness patterns, city homeless service demands, and inequities in homeless care.

“HDIS provides a foundational piece of the state’s data infrastructure,” said Joy
Bonaguro, the chief data officer at the California Government Operations Agency. “Before the HDIS, we had at best, an infrequent and piecemeal snapshot of the homeless challenges in California. With the HDIS we will have an ongoing and holistic picture of how we can assess and improve services for those experiencing homelessness.”

Among its statistics, HDIS reported more than 240,000 homeless had been served by local assistance providers in 2020, that 91,626 people moved into permanent housing, and 117,109 people “remained actively engaged” with services or shelter help — but had yet to find housing.

“From this data, we see some bright spots – [like] providing permanent housing to almost 100,000 homeless Californians every year and more than doubling our efforts to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place,” Newsom said. “But we know there is more work to do.”

This work likely includes homelessness prevention and improving care so social services can retain program participants. The site recorded that more than 40,000 people in 2020 had disengaged with California services and returned to homelessness.

Despite work ahead, optimism is high. The launch received support from Senator Scott Wiener, chair of the Senate Housing Committee; Assemblymember David Chiu, chair of the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee; Castro Ramírez, the secretary of Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH); as well as Jemine Bryon, deputy assistant secretary for Special Needs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“This is a major step forward in our efforts to ensure every Californian has a roof over
their head,” Chiu said. “This is a tool that will help us hold state and local governments accountable for addressing our homelessness crisis.”

This week, legislation that would create the Automated Decision Systems Accountability Act of 2021 passed out of the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection, moving a step closer to regulating artificial intelligence in state IT projects. 

Assembly Bill 13 by Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) requires decision-making on the acquisition of information technology to be supplemented with a computational process that includes data analysis, statistical models, and artificial intelligence that minimizes the risk of algorithmic bias, or the “risk of adverse and discriminatory impacts resulting from the design and application of automated decision systems.”

Existing law requires a “value-effective acquisition” of information technology goods—the careful consideration of operational cost, product quality, and other factors when awarding contracts for applications that carry a high level of risk.

According to the bill, high-risk applications are defined as any application that poses risks to personal information or legal rights of individuals, particularly those identified in the Unruh Civil Rights Act. 

AB13 hinges on the idea that legal obligation of seeking a value-effective acquisition cannot be fulfilled without leveraging automated support that eliminates or reduces the risk of discrimination and bias. 

The proposal says the California Department of Technology must “establish and make public guidelines for identifying automated decision systems that are subject to the bill’s requirements” on or before Jan. 1, 2023.  

The bill also requires that, within ten days of awarding a contract, state agencies must submit a high-risk automated decision system accountability report to CDT, which would provide “a description of any potential disparate impacts . . . and a detailed mitigation plan for identifying and minimizing the potential for any disparate impacts throughout the contracted use of the system.”

Assemblymember Ed Chau, who first proposed AB13 in Dec, 2020, fielded questions during the Thursday hearing. 

Some of AB13’s opposition expressed concerns regarding the breadth of the bill, and whether the definition of a “high-risk application” could be applied to nearly any work the state does on a daily basis.

Chau assured opponents that the bill had already been narrowed substantially and that AB13 “will likely be amended to explicitly exclude [calculators and spreadsheets] from the bill.”

Furthermore, Chau assured the opposition that AB13 would not require private companies that develop algorithms and artificial intelligence to reveal any trade secrets or proprietary information.