Comparing across governments

Open governance projects.   Comparing the reporting across cities and states is a challenge as presented in the report of a study that looked across 260 California cities. Lack of standardization and the fact that not all reports use machine readable data are just part of the challenge.

 The article mentions this work in comparison to the transactions reporting approach of the UK.  http://www.theguardian.com/local-government-network/2013/aug/01/open-governance-projects-compare-council-finances

Projects undertaking tracking of government spending are at http://openspending.org/  and http://www.openlylocal.com/
These are ambitious projects.

Citizen-Centric Financial Reporting award

AGA presented the city of Scottsdale, AZ with a Certificate of Excellence in Citizen-Centric Reporting for the third consecutive year.   Merely four pages in length but a snapshot of visuals to tell specific metrics related to the city.  Interesting section of comparables

http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/Assets/Public+Website/finance/Archive/FY+2011-12/FY_2011-12_Annual_Report.pdf