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Information Technology Steering Committee
Todd Nacapuy, Chair
RE:

Discussion on Availability of State of Hawai`i Online Data
May 3, 2018 at 10:00 a.m.

Dear Chair and Members of the Committee:
My name is Brian Black. I am the Executive Director of the Civil Beat Law Center for
the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization whose primary mission concerns solutions
that promote governmental transparency. Thank you for the opportunity to submit
testimony regarding State of Hawai`i online data.
As this Committee is aware, Hawai`i law requires State agencies to make “reasonable
efforts” to make electronic data sets publicly available through the State’s open data
portal. HRS § 27-44. And the Legislature has asked this Committee to propose data
goals and objectives as part of a State strategic plan. HCR 94.
The Law Center encourages the Committee to carefully scrutinize the State’s approach
to open data. As the State goes through various modernization efforts and agencies
track more information electronically, open data must be an integral planning
component, not an afterthought. Without affirmative guidance, agencies will not
devote adequate attention to public access and open data principles.
In that regard, the Law Center would like to highlight a handful of open data guidelines
and advocate for better access to several known datasets.
A few basic principles that would help the public:1
•

Centralized access to data. Providing a central site for electronic data allows the
public to find information efficiently. Illustrating the problems with
decentralized data, the open data portal, DOTAX, and DBEDT, for example, all
maintain separate datasets for, among other things, General Excise and Use Tax
Collections. Each separate dataset has a different scope and uses different data
formats. A member of the public may find one dataset and believe it the official
record of available State data when another dataset has more comprehensive or
better accessible information.

The Committee also might consider the Sunlight Foundation’s Open Data Policy
Guidelines. https://sunlightfoundation.com/opendataguidelines/.
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•

Machine readable open data standard format. Information should be readily
accessible to any user (with API protocols whenever possible). As an example,
rather than releasing information in an open data standard format, DOTAX posts
tax collection data in less accessible formats either as a PDF report or as an Excel
spreadsheet within a ZIP file. As another example, DOH posts restaurant
inspection data on a website, but does not permit bulk download of the data or
provide API protocols, limiting users to access through DOH’s search function.

•

Timely and complete data. Data should be updated consistently and as soon as
possible—on a real-time basis whenever possible. As an example of existing
issues, the tax collection data on the open data portal was last updated as of
September 2015 and only has data since 1999. In contrast, DOTAX currently has
monthly data from July 1997 to January 2018. The most complete and updated
information is published by DBEDT with monthly data from January 1980 to
February 2018.

•

Educate the public about collected data. The community cannot provide agencies
with feedback on which datasets to prioritize for access when the public has no
idea what information agencies are collecting. Many datasets posted on the open
data portal are irrelevant to users. But agencies may be collecting data internally
that would have high public interest if published. Agencies should keep the
public informed about what information it tracks electronically.

Concerning access to existing datasets, the Law Center recently asked various open data
stakeholders which datasets needed better public access. Consistent with the last
principle above regarding educating the public, this list is limited in scope to only those
datasets already known to exist. With more information about agency data collection
practices, other priorities among datasets might emerge.
1. Financial data (budget, revenue, expenditures, payroll, pension).
1.1. Existing access. Several years ago, the State established sites to track certain
financial data (openbudget.hawaii.gov and openexpenditures.hawaii.gov).
While a solid initial step, those sites had various deficiencies from the outset:
the sites did not track revenue, payroll, or pension data; budget and expenditure
data were not linked to allow the public to follow the subsequent expenditure of
budgeted funds; and the expenditure data was incomprehensible because it
used program codes, rather than plain language descriptions. Over time, it
appears that the State stopped maintaining the sites because no data has been
uploaded since FY 2016 and the checkbook level functionality for expenditures
returns server errors.
1.2. Public benefit. The public deserves as much access as possible to information
concerning how the government is spending taxpayer monies. Financial
transparency is critical to public accountability. The State previously recognized

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the importance of spending transparency as an objective to be measured
according to points assigned in the national survey by the U.S. Public Interest
Research Group. https://dashboard.hawaii.gov/en/stat/goals/ygf48dm6/7v7d-uchh/2xxp-w56t. U.S. PIRG graded Hawai`i as a C in 2016 and last
week graded the State as an F. Other groups have stepped into the gap left by
the State’s failure to provide access to payroll and pension data. Honolulu Civil
Beat, Database of Public Employee Salaries for Fiscal Year 2018,
http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/08/database-of-public-employee-salaries-forfiscal-year-2018/; Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, http://www.openhawaii.org.
1.3. Improvements. Connecticut has a good model of open data for financial
information using the same Socrata platform as the State’s existing websites.
http://www.osc.ct.gov/openCT.html.
2. Tax data (collections, credits, exemptions, tax base).
2.1. Existing access. As noted above, some tax data may be found in various locations
in different formats and with different degrees of recency.
2.2. Public benefit. Similar to financial data generally, tax data bears directly on
government collection and use of taxpayer monies. The public deserves as
much access as possible without compromising the confidentiality of individual
taxpayers. Some of this information contributes to the U.S. PIRG grading
methodology.
2.3. Improvements. The State should have a single definitive source for all tax data
provided in a format that maximizes user access. For example, there is no
obvious reason why all of the data maintained by DBEDT and DOTAX is not
uploaded to the open data portal. Also, consideration should be given to
whether more refined datasets (more fields or different statistics) may be
possible without identifying individual taxpayers.
3. Procurement data (solicitations, awards, contracts, amendments).
3.1. Existing access. The State Procurement Office maintains two data systems—
Hawaii Awards and Notices Database System (HANDS) and State of Hawaii
eProcurement (HIePRO). The level of detail recorded is not consistent between
the two systems.
3.2. Public benefit. Again, the public deserves access to information regarding how
the government uses taxpayer monies. The more information immediately
accessible minimizes the potential for public confusion when issues arise
concerning government contracts. Oddly, information appears to be more
readily accessible for small purchases than for multi-million dollar contracts.
3.3. Improvements. The State should have a consistent level of access to procurement
information in HANDS and HIePRO. For example, ready access to copies of
solicitations, contracts, amendments, and change orders would greatly minimize
requests for such information across all State agencies. Information about
subcontractors also would further public understanding of the procurement

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process. Maintaining the information in a standard format might permit the
procurement system to link with State expenditure data to show, for example, in
the procurement data when monies are paid to a contractor and provide links in
the expenditure data to the specific procurement details.
4. DOH data (enforcements, inspections).
4.1. Existing access. DOH has numerous datasets spread across various branches.
The level of detail varies among the datasets, and some data is more readily
accessible than others.
4.2. Public benefit. DOH data typically concerns public health and safety. From
environmental enforcement actions to care facility inspections, the data allows
the public to make more informed decisions.
4.3. Improvements. Centralized access to standard format data would greatly
improve public access. Solid & Hazardous Waste Branch receives thousands of
public record requests every year for inspection information, but posts all of its
responses on a password-protected website. The public and the branch would
benefit from a policy to publicly post all inspection reports to minimize the
requests made. Other branches appear to use electronic forms to record
inspection information, but upload PDFs. Also, if inspection and enforcement
information were maintained in an open data standard format, then linking the
information to DCCA business registration and licensing information would
further assist the public.
5. DCCA data (licensing, complaints, business registration).
5.1. Existing access. DCCA provides access to various information through limited
search functionality. The department also charges fees for certain access to
business registration data, including bulk download and some searches.
5.2. Public benefit. DCCA data allows the public to monitor and understand the
State’s regulation of businesses.
5.3. Improvements. For data that DCCA is not monetizing (e.g., licensing and
complaint data), public access should not be confined to limited search
capabilities; data should be accessible in an open data standard format. For the
business registration data, a common request is the ability to search by an officer
or director’s name, which would significantly improve the public’s
understanding of the relationship between business entities in the State.
Consideration also should be given to whether the monetization of the business
registration data provides adequate funding to justify the limitation on public
access.2

DCCA is unusual among State agencies because its statutory authority permits the
Department to charge commercial rates for access to business registration records. HRS
§ 26-9(l)(2).
2

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6. DLNR Bureau of Conveyance data.
6.1. Existing access. The Bureau provides access to information specified in HRS
§ 502-26 as an index of recorded documents. It is unclear, but seems likely, that
the Bureau electronically tracks additional information.
6.2. Public benefit. The public records law recognizes the strong public interest in
“[l]and ownership, transfer, and lien records.” HRS § 92F-12(a)(5).
6.3. Improvements. The Bureau should provide access to land records in an open data
standard format or otherwise improve the existing access by displaying all
available fields of information and permitting greater search functionality.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.