A Philadelphia engineer published visual tools to help residents navigate the city\u2019s newly approved budget.<\/p>\n
Aaron Couch developed Philly Budget Data<\/a>, a website that uses open-source data visualization tools to create charts that show how Philadelphia\u2019s city budget breaks down.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe tools were available, but not being utilized, but the data wasn\u2019t really accessible because the city doesn\u2019t provide it in a machine-readable or accessible format.\u201d<\/p>\n Aaron Couch, Philly Budget Data<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m able to provide this view for folks that are interested in the city budget, that want to get a better understanding of it, where the money\u2019s being used, how it\u2019s being allocated,\u201d he told Technical.ly. \u201cThese open source tools made that a lot easier.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Couch produced two separate features \u2013 bubble charts visualizing fiscal years 2027 and 2026 and a breakdown of budget trends over time \u2014 inspired by past data efforts.<\/p>\n The bubble charts break down the budget by category and show how much the funding has changed from the previous year. Another chart shows where the money for this year\u2019s budget is coming from, like the General Fund and the Grants Revenue Fund.<\/p>\n The site also features what he calls a longitudinal budget view to showcase the budget breakdown for each year going back to 2019 and shows how the numbers have changed over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, you can see that funding for the police department has steadily increased, while money for arts and culture was increasing a few years ago, before dropping this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The site also includes resources about Philadelphia\u2019s budgeting cycle and information about participatory budgeting processes. Couch said he wants to keep the site up-to-date going forward and add features that would allow people to consider how they would like the funding to be allocated.\u00a0<\/p>\n While he published the site relatively late in this year\u2019s budget cycle, many people don\u2019t realize that it\u2019s typically a year-long process as departments start advocating for their needs, Couch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mayor Cherelle Parker signed the $7.1 billion budget<\/a> for fiscal year 2027 last week after back-and-forth about school district funding<\/a> and proposed taxes on rideshare users, delivery services and short-term rentals. The new budget will go into effect July 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n How open data tools can make city budgets more accessible<\/p>\n Overall, the project is a testament to how open source tools can make information more accessible to the general public, Couch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The bubble charts are based on a tool built by the Swiss chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a global organization that creates open data resources. Years ago, Couch said, the city used the tool to share its budget data, and the GitHub repository<\/a> containing the source code for those charts is still available.<\/p>\n For the new budget, Couch pulled data from PDFs published by the city and entered it into the existing tool.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tools were available, but not being utilized, but the data wasn\u2019t really accessible because the city doesn\u2019t provide it in a machine-readable or accessible format,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I created that mini data extraction layer and was able to publish these bubble charts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The site\u2019s other visualization, which tracks budget changes over time, was built with an open-source tool developed by the civic tech company DataMade.<\/p>\n