Published February 12 2016
Today, the City of Bellevue launched its open data portal, which is intended to help the city share its progress in achieving intended results with residents and other stakeholders.
The open data catalog includes free, easy to access data about Bellevue's budget and expenditures, demographics, businesses and crime.
"Bellevue has always been a results oriented city," said Mayor John Stokes. "We are committed to using data and evidence to inform decision-making resulting in municipal services to get results for our community. The open data portal will also provide our community with easier access to government information."
Bellevue's open data portal is part of its "What Works Cities" engagement with Bloomberg Philanthropies. WWC is one of the largest-ever philanthropic efforts to enhance the use of data and evidence in the public sector. Launched in April 2015, the $42 million initiative is already providing support to city halls in 21 cities and will admit up to 100 cities on a rolling basis through 2017. Bellevue was selected to participate in December.
Bellevue plans to use the open data portal to increase the use of data and evidence to improve services, inform local decision making and further engage residents in government performance. The initial site includes 18 data sets and the city will continue to add data collections as they become available.
"Open data is a key component of being a High Performance Organization whose bottom line is getting results that matter to the community," said City Manager Brad Miyake. "Easier access to government data can help Bellevue residents and business better understand government services and trends and work together on results."
Updates on the What Works Cities are available at www.whatworkscities.org.