Governor Martin O'Malley Offers Public Demonstration: 'Making Government Work with Openness and Transparency'
Governor features StateStat, BayStat, and Recovery Stat at Maryland Association of Counties Annual Summer Conference
OCEAN CITY, MD (August 13, 2009) –Governor Martin O’Malley offered a public demonstration today of the technological tools the O’Malley-Brown Administration has implemented to make government work more efficiently, while maintaining the highest standards of openness and transparency. Today, before officials attending the Maryland Association of Counties Annual Summer Conference in Ocean City, the Governor demonstrated StateStat, BayStat, and Recovery Stat, three public transparency tools employing Geographic Informational System (GIS) technology designed to increase government accountability for Maryland citizens.
“This GIS technology holds a tremendous amount of promise, and we’re proud to be among the most innovative states in the nation to utilize its potential for the benefit of the people we serve,” said Governor O’Malley. “Through the use of these tools, we have the ability to connect human efforts with human problems, track the basic needs of our citizens and the resources of our government, and recognize trends in the services we provide. In short, the GIS technology that we employed on the City level, and now on the State level, operates under the basic assumption that if we pay taxes, our government ought to work for us.”
StateStat
StateStat, Maryland’s performance-measurement and management program implemented to make state government more accountable and more efficient brings together relevant agencies on a variety of priority areas for the O’Malley-Brown Administration. Modeled after the CitiStat program that he developed as Mayor of Baltimore City, Governor O'Malley is using this data-based management approach to make Maryland's government work again for the people of our State. The CitiStat program has been studied and emulated by countless jurisdictions from around the globe, and received the “Innovations in Government” Award by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. As Governor, O'Malley has adapted the program by applying these same principles to the management of statewide services.
Key public safety, health care, and social services agencies were selected to form the initial foundation of StateStat review process: the Department of Juvenile Services, The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Human Resources, and Health and Mental Hygiene. The program has expanded to include critical service agencies such as: the Maryland Department of State Police, the Department of General Services, the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, and the Department of Housing and Community Development.
BayStat
Governor Martin O’Malley created BayStat by Executive Order in February, 2007 – a powerful statewide tool designed to assess, coordinate and target Maryland’s Bay restoration programs, and to inform our citizens on progress. Each month Governor O’Malley meets with his BayStat team, the Secretaries of the Maryland Departments of Agriculture, Environment, Natural Resources and Planning, scientists from the University of Maryland and other key staff. At these meetings, the team reports on progress points for Bay efforts. These sessions provide a regular opportunity for the team to assess progress, evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and adapt the efforts accordingly.
BayStat allows Maryland state agencies to work efficiently toward the broad goal of restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay by coordinating efforts and programs, basing decisions on the best available science, targeting resources to get the best results for the efforts put forth and providing a greater level of accountability and openness for Maryland citizens.
During his presentation, Governor O’Malley discussed new two-year milestones, reached with our regional partners to significantly accelerate our collective Chesapeake Bay restoration actions.
Recovery Stat
Within days of President Obama signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Governor O’Malley announced the launched of recovery.maryland.gov, designed to track every penny of federal investment, every project funded by the Recovery Act, and the jobs supported by the investments.
The website, maintained by StateStat, tracks every category of ARRA spending providing contract-level details to the public. Recently, Maryland launched an updated application for the website, allowing users to find information more easily. The Map has been upgraded with additional information tools, detailed fund descriptions and project details. The new site also provides users the opportunity to send comments and questions about the data and the map directly to StateStat administrators.
.
