Part 2: Reporting Requirements // Is reporting data accurate? // Why does this data need to be accurate? // The Council should look into this, and I'm happy to help.
All data comes from the NYC Open Data portal and is linked on the bottom of the WeGov page.
Looking at the city's open data: it isn't explicitly clear whether an agency is meeting its reporting requirement. Closest thing I can see on the "Required Report" dataset is if the column Last Published Date is filled in then they submitted a report and if they didn't, they didn't? What are the consequences of "required report" not being submitted? And wouldn't it be nice is both the Required Report and then Government Publication has UIDs and referenced those UIDs in the open dataset so computers could tell us that Government Publication A is the Required Report B.
The original source of that data is DORIS (Department of Records and Information Services), and they keep a real-time list of all reports they should receive; the open data list is updated every few weeks. If DORIS does not receive a report, they will issue a "late notice," and that's how you know it's late.
For example, see "Late Notice - Quarterly Emergency Lock-in Report" on:
It's so great to see you brining attention to this important issue! Reporting requirements have always seemed to me to be something often lacking in cost-benefit analysis, particularly analysis of the sum total impact of all of the required reports.
Great article.
You can see all the Required Reports and official Publications of each city agency in the WeGovNYC Databook agency profile in the Data & Reports section. (ex: https://databook.wegov.nyc/o/170010040-department-of-education/required-reports)
All data comes from the NYC Open Data portal and is linked on the bottom of the WeGov page.
Looking at the city's open data: it isn't explicitly clear whether an agency is meeting its reporting requirement. Closest thing I can see on the "Required Report" dataset is if the column Last Published Date is filled in then they submitted a report and if they didn't, they didn't? What are the consequences of "required report" not being submitted? And wouldn't it be nice is both the Required Report and then Government Publication has UIDs and referenced those UIDs in the open dataset so computers could tell us that Government Publication A is the Required Report B.
Thanks!
The original source of that data is DORIS (Department of Records and Information Services), and they keep a real-time list of all reports they should receive; the open data list is updated every few weeks. If DORIS does not receive a report, they will issue a "late notice," and that's how you know it's late.
For example, see "Late Notice - Quarterly Emergency Lock-in Report" on:
https://a860-gpp.nyc.gov/collections/zw12z528p?locale=en
If I'm doing reports analysis, I usually just scrape the DORIS info, and am working on a post to send to the NYC Open Data team about this.
It's so great to see you brining attention to this important issue! Reporting requirements have always seemed to me to be something often lacking in cost-benefit analysis, particularly analysis of the sum total impact of all of the required reports.