Corona Launches Open Data Portal, Open Performance is Part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ National What Works Cities initiative

Corona, CA – The City of Corona has taken another major step forward in its vision to be a leader of local government transparency and data-driven operations. The City’s new open data dashboard, called “Corona Open Performance,” provides citizens with a wealth of information and data sets at the click of a button geared towards improving efficiency, effective service delivery and community engagement.

Corona’s open data dashboards, powered by Socrata, are a way for people to make sense of large amounts of data in a visual format. Site users can download the data sets in spreadsheets, flag data sets to watch or compare, create visualizations, such as maps, charts and graphs, as well as embed the data into other websites. Currently, Corona has 91 data sets available for consumption that cover a variety of City operations, such as library and recreation patronage, social media, SeeClickFix, finance, business licenses, Police and Fire Department activity, and transportation, to name a few.

The Corona Open Performance project was developed through the City’s participation in What Works Cities, a national initiative launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies in April 2015. What Works Cities has helped 100 local governments across the nation deploy data and evidence to make better decisions, deliver more effective services and programs and improve residents’ lives.

“The City of Corona is committed to putting data and facts at the core of how it operates, tackles pressing challenges and engages the community,” said What Works Cities Executive Director Simone Brody. “Corona Open Performance is an exciting manifestation of that commitment, and we look forward to how it helps the City continue driving progress toward its goals.”

Corona’s Department of Water and Power (DWP) was the first City department to champion the deployment of data analysis to troubleshoot and address challenges. By working with What Works Cities partner the Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) at Johns Hopkins University, the DWP tracked call volume during power outages, and developed a digital power outage map to pinpoint outage locations and provide hourly status updates on repairs to residents. The innovative approach resulted in a 15-20% decrease in call volume at the DWP. This example of operational efficiency has allowed DWP staff to reallocate time previously spent responding to calls toward the critical work that needs to be done while also improving customer service responsiveness and satisfaction. According to Chief Information Officer Chris McMasters, “The goal is to achieve similar data-driven successes citywide to help drive innovation and service delivery models.”

“When we began our work with the City of Corona, the very first thing the leadership wanted was to ensure transparency and accountability to its residents,” said Emily Shaw, GovEx Senior Implementation Adviser. “The new Open Performance portal demonstrates this strong commitment and, with every measurement and data set, will allow the public to have a greater understanding of how services are delivered and their impact on communities.”

“Making data-driven decisions, ensuring access to key data analytics in real time and providing data visualizations to fuel citizen engagement are now mission critical for sustaining and improving current service levels for our community,” said City Manager Darrell Talbert.

The Corona Open Performance platform will continue to evolve as goals and objective are set and the City works towards achieving those long-term performance management targets. The City will continue to release additional data sets as they become available.

The City of Corona partnered with Socrata, a Tyler Technologies company, because it wanted a new program to streamline and more efficiently deliver large amounts of data in a rapid, organized and easy-to-use manner. Data on Socrata’s platform is machine-readable via application programming interface (API), making it possible for businesses, researchers and organizations to build applications using the data. Examples of successful businesses using Socrata-hosted, public data are Yelp, Redfin and Porch.

“We are excited to work with the City of Corona to further create an intuitive and efficient way for residents and businesses to access open data, regardless of their skill set,” said Kevin Merritt, President Data & Insights Division of Tyler Technologies. “This transformation is significant because it updates how citizens and the City of Corona interact, increasing collaboration for improved quality of life.”

Visit Corona Open Performance page at http://Corstat.CoronaCA.gov

About the City of Corona: Corona is located adjacent to Orange County California at the junction of the 91 and 15 freeways, with a population of more than 160,000 residents. For more information regarding the City of Corona, visit www.CoronaCA.gov.