Category: Product

ClearGov today launched a comprehensive analytics solution for school districts. The new ClearGov Insights™ for Schools platform enables school districts to better communicate with their constituents through easy-to-understand, interactive infographics on student demographics, staffing headcount and salaries, student test performance, district financials and much more. The platform also empowers district administration with back-office tools to quickly compare district performance against similar districts to identify opportunities for efficiency and make more informed and data-driven budgetary and policy decisions.

“Building public support is critical in today’s society.  There is so much data on schools available to the public that it is overwhelming for the average parent and taxpayer.  Telling our district’s story in a clear and compelling manner can help proactively address the public’s increased appetite for information and get everyone on the same page,” said Michael Welch, Superintendent of Dedham Public Schools.   In addition to Dedham Public Schools, twenty school districts across Massachusetts, including Easton Public Schools, Framingham Public Schools, and Wayland Public schools are now leveraging the ClearGov for Schools platform for increased transparency.

Utilizing publicly available data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), ClearGov has created easy-to-understand transparency websites for over 300 school districts across Massachusetts, which are available to the public for free today.  Taxpayers can not only compare expenditures for districts year-to-year, but also have the ability to break the budget down into specific categories of spending to see exactly how their tax dollars have been used.

School Districts can choose to upgrade and enhance their publicly available transparency site with additional dashboards, including:

Detailed Funding & Expenditure Analyses: Allow visitors to “drill down” into funding and expenditure subcategory details.

Student Body Analysis: Offers insights into changing student demographics, including enrollment trends, high needs students, student diversity, and more.

Employee Analysis: Informs visitors on trends in staffing with a particular emphasis on educators.

Test Performance Analysis: Communicates complex test scores in an easy-to-understand format with powerful benchmarking metrics.

State Aid Analysis:  Provides a comprehensive view of state funding sources, including Chapter 70, Circuit Breaker and more.

“Education spending can comprise a large portion of municipal expenditures and there are many factors that drive school district budgeting. ClearGov for Schools helps school districts better communicate not only financial and test performance, but also the ever-changing dynamics they must consider when budgeting,” said Chris Bullock, CEO of ClearGov.

In addition to providing the public access to easy-to-understand financials, the platform also provides a set of benchmarking analytical tools to assist district and school administration and school committees in making more informed policy and budgetary decisions.

“Data analysis and benchmarking have become a critical, yet arduous component of our budgeting and planning process. ClearGov for Schools delivers time-saving analyses and powerful insights for our administration,” said Dr. Andrew Keough, Superintendent of Easton Public Schools.

ClearGov Insights™ for Schools is currently available in Massachusetts and will become available in additional states in the near future.

Partners with Town of Brookline to Share Check-level Expenditure Detail

Wayland, MA (January 18, 2017)  – ClearGov, a leading municipal transparency and benchmarking platform, announced today that it has partnered with the Town of Brookline, MA, to introduce new functionality to its platform which empowers local governments to share check-level expenditure detail with residents. The new tool enables taxpayers and internal stakeholders to explore expenditures by specific transaction and see every check the town has issued to vendors.

“Our goal continues to be better transparency in government operations and improved access to how tax dollars are being spent” said Mel Kleckner, Town Adminstrator of the Town of Brookline.  He continued, “We’ve partnered with ClearGov to create a site that not only clearly illustrates how the town allocates funding, but also raises the bar on the level of financial detail available to the public from our prior system.”

ClearGov sources publicly available financial and performance data on municipalities to create easy-to-understand transparency websites for thousands of municipalities across the United States, which are made available to the public for free.  Municipalities can choose to upgrade and enhance their publicly available transparency site with more robust information and provide context through commentary on the figures.  Open Checkbook by ClearGov is now an optional module that enables visitors to drill down to the check-level detail on expenditures and identify all payments to individual vendors.

Brookline is at the forefront of a growing movement of towns in Massachusetts that have partnered with ClearGov to transform complex financial statements into clear and actionable fiscal insights.  The platform not only provides the public with access to easy-to-understand financials, but also delivers a centralized source of financial data and benchmarking analytics to municipal officials to help them make more informed policy and budgetary decisions.

“We are incredibly excited to support Brookline’s forward-thinking transparency efforts,” said Chris Bullock, CEO of ClearGov.  “Open Checkbook by ClearGov is a natural extension of our fiscal clarity and insights platform, which allows residents and internal stakeholders to better understand how tax dollars are being put to work.”

Visit Brookline’s ClearGov site:

http://www.cleargov.com/massachusetts/norfolk/town/brookline/2016

Press Contact:  

Chris Bullock

508-308-0440

About ClearGov

ClearGov helps local governments communicate and operate more effectively and efficiently through a unique fiscal clarity and insights platform.  Local governments leverage ClearGov to more clearly communicate their financial performance in an effort to build citizen support and participation through transparency. ClearGov also provides valuable municipal benchmarking intelligence to help government leaders quickly compare their finances against similar communities in an effort to make more informed and data-driven policy and budgetary decisions.

We are excited to announce that ClearGov has been recognized by GovTech magazine as one of the most innovative and influential companies focused on serving governments.  The GovTech 100 list highlights “a foundational group of companies (that) embodied the essence of the space and a good starting place to understand a market lacking in the attention it deserves.”

“We are humbled to be even associated with so many successful and innovative companies,” said Chris Bullock, CEO of ClearGov.  “GovTech companies not only represent a fast-growing market segment, but they are building solutions that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how our tax dollars are put to use and, as such, improve the lives of millions of people.”

In it’s preface to the GovTech100 of 2017 list, GovTech highlights 2017 as a year of increased venture capital investment and solid exits that lend credence to the “forward momentum” of the gov tech marketplace.  Specifically the article highlights the “movement to open up government data” that will lead to tremendous value being unlocked by companies offering innovative approaches data analysis.

Click here to see the full list of GovTech 100 companies.

Municipal Financial Sites for 18,000+ Local Governments Across 20 States Now Available

Wayland, MA (December 12, 2016)  – ClearGov, a leading municipal transparency and benchmarking platform, announced today that its Insights^TM municipal database now covers over 60% of the US population.  Through its unique interactive infographic approach ClearGov is proactively bringing enhanced transparency to 18,870 municipalities across 20 states serving an aggregate population of 200+ million people.  With this announcement the ClearGov platform now boasts the world’s largest public collection of local government financial profiles.

“ClearGov is on a mission to revolutionize government transparency,” said CEO and Founder Chris Bullock. “Unlike any other organization, we proactively provide enhanced transparency to the public using open data sourced from local, state and national resources.   We take great care to provide this information in a user-friendly format so all taxpayers, whether they have financial expertise or not, can find the information about how their tax dollars are being spent and get a better picture of how their local government operates and makes decisions.”

ClearGov transforms complex financial municipal data into easy-to-understand infographics.  Through ClearGov’s proprietary benchmarking algorithm the site automatically compares the revenues and expenditures of local governments to their statistical peer communities to provide context for visitors.  Local governments can upgrade their ClearGov page to enhance their financial profile with more current and granular detail and to unlock enhanced data modules to help better tell their financial story.  Over 50 communities have leveraged the ClearGov platform to better communicate their financial story and gather insights into their municipal budget in comparison to peer communities.

The ClearGov Insights^TM database also enables local government officials to easily create custom benchmarking analyses.  These comparisons against similar communities empower these officials to make more informed and data-driven budgetary and policy decisions.

“Governments are often criticized for putting out complicated financial information which is hard to understand and lacks comparative context,” added Audrey Hall, VP of Business Development.  “Local governments can leverage ClearGov’s platform to put those numbers in the context of the bigger picture to help drive public trust and support.  These municipalities are not just providing transparency, they are providing clarity, which is a powerful shift in intention.”

About ClearGov

ClearGov transforms city and town financial statements into easy-to-understand infographics to help citizens better understand how their tax dollars are being put to use.  Local governments leverage ClearGov to more clearly communicate their financial performance in an effort to build citizen trust and participation through transparency.   ClearGov also provides valuable municipal benchmarking intelligence to help government leaders make more informed and data-driven policy and budgetary decisions while opening the door wider to sharing best practices between municipalities.