Government finance is notoriously inefficient. The Heritage Foundation recently reported that the Pentagon spent $998,798 shipping two 19 cent washers from South Carolina to Texas. In 2013 Business Insider reported the results of an Inspector General’s investigation: almost $16 billion dollars in waste and spending inefficiencies, including incorrect calculations resulting in $148 million in overpaid government checks.
Many people, myself included, have simply assumed that the government will always work this way. It’s a law of nature. The sun rises in the east, the Cleveland Browns will always suck, and the government will always waste money.
Thankfully, OpenGov, on whom we first reported back in July, doesn’t follow the laws of nature.
And perhaps more thankfully, they just received another $25 million in funding. In addition to the cash, the company also added Marc Andreessen, of Andreesen Horowitz, to their board.
OpenGov brings 21st century reporting and analytics to the notoriously backwards world of government technology and finance. Their reporting functions make it simple for anyone to generate reports and analyze thousands of different slices of government finance data. The reports can then be easily shared and updated in order to keep everyone on the same page when it comes to budget data.
OpenGov also makes it simple for governments to provide their constituents with easy-to-understand reports and data, which in turn encourages and facilitates transparency.
Software is eating the business of governing, and OpenGov is changing the future of government, giving public agencies at all levels the kinds of financial tools that successful companies use to analyze and manage their business. Better data means a better run government — and that’s good for all of us. I’m thrilled to be part of this mission.
As they try to tackle big problems, OpenGov has big plans for growth. After their most recent round of funding, they had the following to say:
With the new funding, the company plans to continue its momentum by hiring top new talent, aggressively developing the OpenGov platform to better serve its government customers’ needs, and expanding its reach to every government in the U.S.
Ambitious but not impossible. With over 500 governments in 44 states now using OpenGov, they seem to be giving the people what they want.
Stephen Altrogge is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Florida. He writes about tech, marketing, faith, and lots of other things. He’s married to Jen and has three young girls. Every day he consumes more coffee than the entire population of Colombia. He knows more about Star Wars than any respectable man should, and he runs more than any sane man would. He once attempted to eat a 2 pound hamburger in under an hour. He failed.
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When cities are always trying to save money, tracking it is the first step of knowing what you have and where it is going. Maybe with graphs like this in front of people, they can make the call as to whether or not budgets need to be looked at more closely.