The city stopped by to fill these potholes several times towards the end of this past winter. I saw them out working on them three times myself. It would rain sometime after and the patchwork was so shoddy that the rain would literally wash the fill away. Talk about government inefficiency.
One of the best ways to bring government costs down is to shine a light on government spending. A good, recent example of this was Obama’s Recovery.gov project. This website allowed citizens to hold their government accountable for its spending with easy to understand, geographically-linked information graphics about the infrastructure projects that the stimulus package was funding. It also allowed citizens to report fraud, waste and abuse.
Locally, while it may all be public information, Terre Haute residents have to sift through a variety of sources to attempt to understand where the money is going. Bennett’s State of the City presentation provides some direction, various Tribune Star articles talk about specific projects, but overall it can be difficult to piece together what companies are receiving city contracts, how they were selected to receive those contracts, and then make some sort of comparison against other cities to see if we’re getting our money’s worth.
Starting at the beginning of the process, I propose that we require our city government to post all Requests for Proposals (RFPs) on the city website. Local businesses would be able to more easily see what all contracts are open, and a more competitive bidding process would result. The bidding process could be 100% electronic to minimize costs. Once a company is awarded a city contract, the contract information, including overruns as they happen, should be posted on the city website. The city should not be getting into contracts with excessive term lengths, especially in the information technology sector where things change constantly. And finally, at the completion of the contract’s term, citizens should be able to see if the project came in on time and on budget so that they can comment accordingly.
In addition to posting the information on the website, the city should provide API access for technology developers. Public APIs are revolutionizing the way that citizens view and communicate with their government up and down our coasts, and the technology is often open sourced since it was developed with public funds. Terre Haute could apply for free help from the non-profit Code for America and/or utilize technology from Civic Commons. We have quite a bit of untapped potential at our local universities that we could draw on as well.
