“The practices and policies that support comprehensive management of shared and internal data so local governments can routinely and strategically leverage data for decision making and delivery of data and analytics services.”
Tempe, Arizona
2023 Platinum Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities Certification
Tempe has a very comprehensive data management practice, one that emphasizes the values of transparency. The city has developed policies, practices, and standards related to how data are made public, stored, shared, secured, and improved, all within the city’s Data Policy and Governance guide. These are very much living documents: a cross-departmental Data Governance Committee meets regularly to review and update these practices, policies, and standards as circumstances or technology change. For example, the committee recently added a policy related to the ethical use of artificial intelligence.
Tempe also centers community input in its data management practices. The city routinely collects qualitative feedback from residents, following community engagement approaches outlined in its Engagement Framework and Involving the Public Manual. In addition, Tempe has a standard in place around the collection and use of disaggregated data. The standard lays out the why, when, and how of managing data broken down by demographic or geographic characteristics. For example, when city leaders conduct public surveys or questionnaires, they use a consistent set of questions and answers, ensuring that data they collect on age, race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other characteristics comes out “apples to apples.” Having quality disaggregated data enables city leaders to identify, measure, and address disparities in services and outcomes.
Demand is growing in and out of Tempe’s City Hall for data packaged in user-friendly ways, such as the data shared through the dashboard Tempe’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services teams use to analyze their performance. To ensure that data sharing efforts like these meet the needs of residents, Tempe has published a “Disaggregated Demographic and Geographic Data Standard” — one of the first among U.S. cities. The standard makes clear that city leaders should prioritize building data sharing efforts likely to have the biggest impact, and be developed based on feedback from the people who use it.
Tempe City Government Resources:
- Tempe Data Policy and Governance guide
- Open Data Policy
- Expedited Data Sharing Policy
- Data Quality Standard and Checklist
- Disaggregated Demographic Data Standards
- Data and Analytics Service Standards
- Tempe Data Coordinator Handbook
- Equity in Action engagement framework
- Tempe Data Catalog