BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 573
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Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 573
(Pan) - As Amended July 9, 2015
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|Policy |Accountability and |Vote:|9 - 0 |
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| |Privacy and Consumer | |11 - 0 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY: This bill requires the Governor to appoint a Chief Data
Officer (CDO) who will create an inventory of all available data
in the state and create a statewide open data portal that is
accessible to the public by January 1, 2017. This bill also
requires state agencies identified by the CDO to appoint a data
coordinator, identify any data sets within the agency, transmit
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the inventory to the CDO by October 1, 2016, and publish it on
the statewide open data portal.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Unknown costs, potentially in the low millions (various
funding sources), for yet-to-be-identified state entities to
appoint a data coordinator, identify data sets, and create a
plan for data publication. Additional cost pressures,
potentially in the millions, for these agencies to post
available data. Actual costs upon full implementation, would
vary among state agencies depending on each entity's function
and inventory of public data.
For illustrative purposes, the Office of Statewide Planning
and Development will spend approximately $220,000 this year on
its open data project. To comply with the provisions of this
bill, the Department of Insurance anticipates costs of
$224,000 initially and $183,000 ongoing for a new data
coordinator position and to set up the portal. The Air
Resources Board anticipates costs of $334,000 for the same
purposes. The Franchise Tax Board estimates ongoing costs of
$107,000. Smaller state entities with limited public data sets
would likely incur expenditures in the tens of thousands
annually, while larger agencies are likely to incur costs in
the hundreds of thousands annually. (GF/Special Funds).
2)Ongoing costs for maintenance and hosting likely in the range
of $500,000 to $1 million (GF) annually. These operating
costs could eventually be spread to participating agencies
through the Office of Technology Services rate structure, but
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would initially be covered by the General Fund.
3)Annual costs of approximately $293,000 (GF) annually for an
appointed Chief Data Officer and one data liaison.
4)Onetime costs in the range of $125,000 to $235,000 (GF) to
create a statewide open data depending on whether the
Department of Technology updates the existing Data.CA.gov or
creates the portal.
5)State agency costs may be partially offset in future years to
the extent there is a decrease in Public Records Act requests.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. This bill seeks to increase government transparency
and efficiency and promote economic development by requiring a
CDO, appointed by the Governor, to oversee the establishment
of a statewide open data portal for the public to access state
agency data sets.
According to the author, "Despite being the home of some of
the most innovative technology ideas in the world, California
has not established itself as a leader in developing a unified
open state-wide data policy. While some entities in the state
have developed independent open data projects, California
still lacks a cohesive state policy that standardizes this
data and makes it readable across multiple platforms. SB 573
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would improve California's goal to be transparent and
accountable, increase efficiency and cost-savings, and foster
economic development."
2)Background. The California Public Records Act declares that
"access to information concerning the conduct of the people's
business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person
in this state" and generally requires governmental records to
be disclosed to the public, upon request, unless an agency is
exempted from doing so for a specific reason. Existing law
requires a public agency to make non-exempt electronic public
records available in any electronic format in which it holds
the information or, if requested, in an electronic format used
by the agency to create copies for its own or other agencies'
use. Existing law also authorizes a public agency to charge
to the requestor the direct cost of producing the electronic
public record. The requestor of an electronic public record
must also pay the cost of producing a copy of the record,
including the cost to construct the record, or the costs of
data compilation, extraction, or programming to produce the
record under certain conditions.
California has a centralized data portal at Data.CA.gov. The
portal contains state government data from various state
agencies, some of which is in raw, machine-readable formats
that can be reformatted and reused in different ways.
According to the Data.CA.gov website, more than 100 million
data records are available through the portal including: vital
statistics such as population, birth, death, and marriage
data; more than 50 million data records on education;
California port import/export data; state highway traffic
data; data on vehicle accidents, fatalities, and injuries;
tourism data; water resource data; and geospatial data. The
website has a search function for several of the datasets,
charts, and graphs. Some of the datasets are available in
variety of open formats including CSV, XLS, KML, TXT, and XML.
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Some state entities, including four departments within the
Health and Human Services Agency and the State Controller's
Office, have created their own open data portals.
3)Related Legislation. AB 1215 (Ting) would have established the
California Open Data Act and required the Governor to appoint
a CDO to work with state agencies and experts to formulate a
California Open Data Standard and a centralized Internet Web
portal for public access to data from state agencies. AB 1215
was held on this Committee's Suspense File.
4)Prior Legislation. SB 1002 (Yee) of 2012 would have required
the State Chief Information Officer to conduct a study to
determine the feasibility of providing electronic records in
an open format. SB 1002 was vetoed by the Governor.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
319-2081