What: Progressive public sector organizations are recognizing the valuable information local governments collect and store. Investments are being made to improve the management of and use of this important data. Analytics can then be applied to identify issues, forecast needs and make sure the right decisions are being made by local officials.
Example: The City of Tallahassee utilizes an analytics platform to comb through information gathered by multiple systems including thousands of water meters of local homes and businesses. Previously, municipal workers would have to manually review consumption records to identify leaks. Now, analytics races through data and alerts officials of any potential signs of leaks which saves water and prevents exorbitant utility bills from finding their way into mailboxes.
Why: Tools that have been developed as part of the digital age are available to make town government more efficient, effective and proactive. Updating our data capabilities improves the decision making of municipal employees and provides a concrete foundation for why those decisions were made.
How: Yorktown needs to change the conversation. Rather than continue to advocate for traditional municipal employment investments, a conversation which has been ongoing for more than a decade, Yorktown should examine the value in hiring personnel who specialize in data management and determine the cost benefit analysis associated with having analytic specialists.
