Listen to Mayor Walsh articulate his vision for the City, and you will hear him describe his goal to transform Syracuse into a more data-driven city. But that process is not something that just happens on its own; it takes work and a data-driven culture needs to be nurtured. When the Federal Government passed the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) to provide funding to state and local governments around the United States in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the City of Syracuse received $123 million and the Mayor saw this as an opportunity to foster and promote better data practices throughout the City.
The process started in July of 2021 when the Mayor established the ARPA governance group to ensure the City would be able to manage and implement the ARPA funding with a data-driven framework. As the City’s data department, API joined with representatives from the Finance, Budget, Communications, and various other City departments for this initial planning process. The Federal Government’s guidelines have become more defined over time, but from the beginning, the reporting standards were much more stringent for metropolitan areas with populations over two-hundred-fifty thousand residents. Although the City was not expected to reach those same standards, ARPA was seen as an opportunity to instill better data practices throughout the City from an early stage.
While many departments throughout the City have developed their own project management approaches and data tracking strategies, one of the motivations for having a centralized group with oversight over the various ARPA projects was the establishment of an organization-wide standard for all departments across the City. Such a standard would promote better organizational efficiency and allow for better cooperation between departments. With this goal in mind, there are several strategies that have been adopted.