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