By Burt Mummolo, FOX23.com News Staff
TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa City Auditor Nathan Pickard is working to create an updated roadmap for a new City initiative that will provide greater data transparency for local citizens.
“So, what does deeper transparency look like?” Pickard asked in a presentation to the Tulsa City Council.
Pickard has been working quickly since the passage of an ordinance in May with a directive for his office.
He explained what the new ordinance outlined for his office.
“The City Auditor shall promote transparency and public access to information by identifying, collecting, reviewing and providing data and records maintained by or for the benefit of the City of Tulsa.”
In 2024, the City of Tulsa received a silver rating for data transparency.
Now, Pickard is looking to other cities to see how they’re making information accessible to their citizens.
One example Pickard cited was Boston’s Open Data Portal.
“They’ve got a team that completes 60+ projects per year. Their Open Data Portal has [an] over 251 data set. They kind of range from property and housing, financial where you’ve got a checkbook explorer, public safety, which is crime and 311, government transparency.”
Pickard explained the data transparency efforts that are already being made in Tulsa County.
“They use OpenGov to push out all of their checks that you can review—revenues, expenses, things like that, in a very interactive way.”
However, Tulsa leaders said it’s important to balance data transparency with privacy concerns.
Tulsa City Councilor Christian Bengal said an important step of the process is to define what people will actually be able to access while also being very aware of people’s right to privacy.
“Everybody’s very guarded about data right now, who’s accessing it, who maintains it, how it’s being sold, shared and all that stuff because even on our own phones, our data’s being shared,” Bengal explained.
The timeline for the completion of the initiative is expected to take about a year.
