Launching the pla.orm for enhancing the effec4veness and efficiency of federal spending on states, regions, and communi4es for job growth, compe44veness, and ci4zen-‐centric response
The Center for State and Local Government Excellence
The Consor7um and Alliance Partners
January 2010
• Federal, state, and local governments have limited dollars to spend – and need beBer trend data to improve forecas4ng and investment decisions
• What works to s4mulate economic growth in one region or one sector can vary in another region – therefore examine differences, challenges, and commonali4es
• Too oGen decision makers are behind the curve; beBer metrics and analysis are needed to see a full-‐vision of the resource alloca4on previous and current trends leading to beBer informed changes in direc4on
• Disaggrega4ng informa4on, data, and knowledge to 1,200 geographies provides more significant assessment of impact and long-‐term growth poten4al
Why The Dashboard?
• Not compe44ve with Recovery. Gov nor other White House or Congressional ini4a4ves, rather complimentary
• Leverages four na4onal associa4ons and their networks of state, county, and local elected/appointed officials – and the program managers in charge of day-‐to-‐day delivery
• Is a neutral, independent forum supported by Senior Advisors with cri4cal experience and understanding of Na4onal challenges and government solu4ons
• Integrated solu4on of 50 million records on grants, contracts, procurements, and spending for the past 7 years as well as ARRA and future programs
• Coordinated engagement, communica4ons and feedback among 5,000 jurisdic4ons, ins4tu4ons and organiza4ons to test the data beyond the hypothe4cal with real-‐world experience
What Makes This Different from Other Efforts ?
• Because of the Economic Advisors and Subject MaBer Experts, the Dashboard establishes more precise and accurate spending es4mates on industry sectors, ac4vi4es, job crea4on and non-‐labor categories of spending (healthcare, etc.) using intelligent language analysis.
• With regional modeling, es4mates what the cost per job and the local addi4on to value in each category of jobs (the sales less labor and materials costs).
• Provides a way to compare the contribu4on of jobs to the local economy and the cost of jobs in different locali4es. These metrics can be compared to tradi4onal employment sta4s4cs (number of jobs by industry, average wage levels) to compare trends in the local economy and across locali4es.
Dashboard Establishes Local Metrics…
…by Tracking What is Spent Locally Using Federal, State, and Regional Resources
• Leveraging several technical tools and sources, conduct the analysis to see what investment stays in the local economy (e.g., buses may be purchased outside of the local community)
• See how the differences in where federal investments are made and the sectors that experience the most job growth
• Discover trends, paBerns, anomalies and rela4onships in all data (text and codes) enabling robust predic4ve analy4cs
• Allows blend of text and codes to be built up and shared like Lego Blocks to enable various agencies to run against their own data
• Puts the analysts and SMEs in control of analysis and thus creates flexible structure from chaos
• The tool can track the lag 4me between the 4me of grant announcement to the date that it is spent locally
• Analy4cs can spotlight agencies or regions that are more efficient in geeng projects moving
• Descrip4ve and predic4ve capabili4es can inform what actual savings are achieved
Predic7ve Modeling
What’s Working or Not?
The Tools for End-‐Users
The Dashboard has been designed to provide the greatest breadth of end-‐user experience. To ensure that first-‐4me users as well as those returning to the Dashboard can easily move throughout the data-‐sets, informa4on sources, and repor4ng func4onali4es.
End-‐users have several pathways to select to obtain their answers. Star4ng from selec4ng their state, county, or other jurisdic4on will begin the process of selec4ng further the customized models, scenarios and examples.
End-‐users will not have access directly to the raw-‐data sets, but will have a broad range of op4ons (nearly 35+) on which to select for historical, current and future report crea4on. And end-‐users along with the Center/Consor4um stakeholders are welcome to suggest new metrics and measures.
Geeng Started
Dashboard end-‐users are directed to the Mapping func4onality as a jump-‐start to their experience online. On the Mapping page, the en4re range of exploring the data, reports, and materials comes to life.
In this instance and for purpose of demonstra4on, we have highlighted Greater St. Louis and Greater Toledo – two different and unique economies and geographies facing economic challenges and recovery from divergent perspec4ves. For example, St. Louis with its emphasis on plant life sciences versus Toledo’s automo4ve and advanced materials emphasis.
Four op4ons start the process – the first is around historical and current obligated Federal grants and contracts from 600+ programs and gives the End-‐User a baseline on which to define how much funding has come to their community, from which agencies and sub-‐agency programs, for what purposes, and who received the dollars.
Other op4ons take End-‐Users to Employment, Impact Modeling, and the Scenarios’ pages and repor4ng func4ons.
Drilling into the Data
The Dashboard data is organized into three (3) sources – ARRA in later 2008/2009 and now 2010, Federal Obliga4ons of non-‐ARRA for the past 7 years and going forward, and then Local Spending (Procurement and Contrac4ng) both non-‐ARRA and ARRA related for the past 7 years.
Note that each diagram has a legend detailing what an End-‐User should take-‐away from the informa4on and the report.
Drill-‐Down Data Knowledge
By clicking onto a slice of the previous pie chart, an End-‐User will be taken to addi4onal charts detailing a number of new elements of knowledge. In this instance, we are looking at every source of Transporta4on and Infrastructure coming into Toledo under the 2009 ARRA dollars. It is informa4ve that transporta4on and infrastructure dollars can come from several agencies that are not oGen considered resources to a community, nor are recognized for the role in equipment, facili4es, and broadband related federal investments.
Under the Employment Tab
End-‐Users have access to a host of new informa4on on this page and the subsequent data reports.
On this page, End-‐Users can see a variety of themes in the right hand column on which to create their reports – select a year, select Transporta4on/ Infrastructure or other theme, select variables.
In selec4ng the geography – the reports will drill-‐down to Coun4es, Congressional Districts, COGs-‐MPOs, and Ci4es.
Under the employment op7on, we have modeled using REMI, the effec7ve job crea7on from 2009 grant and contract investments in Federal/Non-‐ARRA, ARRA, and Local Procurement. This side-‐by-‐side comparison details that compara7ve analysis available throughout the Dashboard.
By selec4ng the addi4onal op4ons, End-‐Users can drill-‐down even further to more data across program or clusters, across several years, and across job/ employment related ac4vi4es based on those grant and contract programs.
Under Impact Analysis, the End-‐User has op7ons to review various modeled outcomes from obligated and spent dollars. One of the unique aspects of the Dashboard is to see where impacts might occur along the flow-‐of-‐funds – and which types of projects have different impacts because of program design. For instance, repairing a bridge versus a replacement bridge requiring an environmental impact study before any concrete or rebar is purchased.
By selec7ng the Impact Analysis, the End-‐User can visually see the various model results on job crea7on, sectors, and sources of funding by sub-‐category. Again predic7ve and comparable analy7cs suggests unique findings: how much funding and employment is staying in the region versus leaving to have impacts in other locali7es.
Federal funding in 2009 impacted beyond the direct employment in construc7on. Other sectors and jobs were created indirectly in state and local government, retail trade, and professional services in Toledo. This direct and indirect data drill-‐down signals broader implica7ons – are these high wage, sustainable jobs?
The value for the End-‐User from the Dashboard’s myriad data, func7onality, and perspec7ve capabili7es is to assist with alignment and coordina7on ques7ons among federal, state, and local interests so as to ensure effec7ve use of funds. Here local spending is strongly impac7ng Energy whereas ARRA and Non-‐ARRA dollars impacted Infrastructure and Health Care.
Scenario Seeng for Transforming Economies, Geographies and Ci4zens
The following graphics represent the “insigh`ul” elements of the Dashboard through the iden7fica7on of unique and powerful datasets solving challenges among federal, state and local interests.
In addi7on, the Scenarios sec7on fosters more discussion about the impact of coordina7on, alignment, and integra7on of funding programs, metrics, desired outcomes. Star7ng again with the geography or going directly to the Scenario sec7on, the reports easily impress End-‐Users on debate, discussion and policy recommenda7ons.
These Scenario examples bring together many disparate pieces of data and knowledge to tell a story about the impacts of spending, investment, and collec7ve resource alloca7on.
Flow of Funds Lag-‐Time: what is the 7me-‐gap between an announcement by a Federal agency and the actual spending impact at the local procurement levels? Why do we not see job crea7on or new company forma7on faster with some programs or even loca7ons as compared to other similar communi7es and regions? These types of Scenarios go beyond number coun7ng and towards raising issues requiring aben7on immediately if metrics and impacts are to improve.
Na4onal, Regional, and Local Scenario Outcomes for Lag-‐Time Challenges
By assessing and analyzing several areas of spending from ARRA and non-‐ARRA grants and contracts – based on allocated, adver7sed, and awarded programs – into communi7es across the Na7on, one can see the effect those dollars have had on job crea7on, spending, and direct-‐indirect impacts for a set period of 7me.
The gap in 7me indicates that various programs can take months – and worse years – to restart economic growth.
The Center and the Consor7um will work with leaders across the Na7on to capture even more robust local informa7on on lag-‐7mes, public policies that could be improved to reduce such lag-‐7mes, and where places in the Na7on have found immediate solu7ons for conver7ng grants and contracts into payroll checks and purchasing.
Bang for the Buck: End-‐users want to know that the ARRA and non-‐ARRA spending is crea7ng bang for the buck in job crea7on – and in which sectors the cost per job created can be benchmarked against average wage, against other types of jobs, and against the long-‐term value or benefit for economic growth. The Dashboard includes data that is modeled and assessed to produce snapshots of which jobs have greatest benefit versus those that might not produce a strong local product or por`olio.
Na4onal-‐Regional Innova4on Index: Under the Scenario op7on, end-‐users will have an opportunity to explore how their community par7cipates in the engines of economic innova7on – and thus how to leverage several resources, assets, and infrastructure to spark new products and services for future growth.
With increased budgets for the Na7onal Science Founda7on, the Na7onal Ins7tutes of Health, Departments of Energy and Defense on everything from advanced materials to alterna7ve energy – among other examples – the Na7on con7nues to seek specific results for new knowledge, intellectual property and ul7mately jobs from academic, industry, and entrepreneurial pathways.
The findings of the Innova7on Index indicate the next genera7on of employment, revenues, and industry for community public and private sector leaders.
Ensuring the Workforce & Talent Supply Chain: Leveraging its REMI modeling by linking job crea7on output with Monster.com’s extensive datasets on local job-‐seekers, The Dashboard provides analysis of the workforce and talent supply chain to define near-‐term gaps and long-‐term capability to sustain growth at state, county, and regional levels. A mismatch in the supply chain defines the need to align educa7on and training to meet demand.
Sparking Learning and Leading Through the Online Dashboard Community
The Dashboard is organized to assist End-‐Users in Learning at a more robust level what is or is not happening in their communi7es based on public and private sector investments. The data tools and func7onality on the data, knowledge-‐side of the Dashboard is flexible for mul7ple interests and experiences to share their own findings, ideas and to ask vital ques7ons to thousands of other interested par7es.
Where the Dashboard becomes a necessary pla`orm for Leading is through the “Community” page and its Knowledge Portal, Calendar and Events, and on-‐going hosted blogs for connec7ng 5,000 jurisdic7ons, ins7tu7ons, organiza7ons for improving the Na7on’s results in economic, compe77veness, and ci7zen-‐centric metrics.
End-‐Users are never lef to fumble through the Dashboard – and therefore the Center, Consor7um and Technical Team have designed forums, training webinars, reports, and other informa7on sources to minimize fear of u7liza7on, stretching the value of the resources, and to constantly make the case for the return on invested 7me in the Dashboard products and services.
Art of the Possible:
• Disaggregated 1,200 jurisdic4ons rolled-‐up to regional and na4onal perspec4ves
• Forecast Future Impact of New Dollars against Historical and Current ‘Bang for The Buck” Scenarios – addi4onal DOT/Infrastructure Investment, Small Business and Entrepreneurial Programs, Health-‐Care Ini4a4ves, etc.
• Intelligent Resource Alloca4on Assessments – Coordina4on of Federal-‐State-‐Local Public AND Private Dollars – where reduc4ons in one investment source leverage other sources
• Cost Per Job Crea4on Accuracy Check – Labor vs. Equipment/Materials (Direct and Indirect)
• Revenue AND Spending Rela4onships in Cri4cal Areas of Economic Compe44veness
• Other Op4ons and Needs?
For addi4onal background, discussion, and a live demonstra4on of The Na4onal Dashboard, please contact:
Ms. Elizabeth Kellar Center for State and Local Government Excellence l 777 N. Capitol Street NE l Suite 500 l Washington DC 20002 202 682 6100 l Fax 202 962 3604 l [email protected]
Mr. Richard Seline Na7onal Regional Data Consor7um LLC 1250 24th Street NW l Suite 300 l Washington DC 20037 202 466 0566 l rseline@data-‐consor7um.com
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