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County begins expanded data collection for children's budget; dashboard and analysis planned by fall
Summary
The Social Services Agency told the committee it is collecting detailed program and contract data across county departments for inclusion in the next iteration of the children's budget, with data collection through June and analysis by early fall.
The Social Services Agency’s Office of Children and Families Policy briefed the Finance and Government Operations Committee on March 18 about an expanded countywide effort to gather programmatic and contract data that serve children and families.
Sarah Duffy, deputy director of the Social Services Agency, said county departments began receiving data‑collection forms and that informational sessions were held for departmental liaisons. Data collection will continue through June, Duffy said, and staff will analyze and clean the information for inclusion in the next children's budget iteration, with analysis expected by early fall.
Duffy described plans to create interactive dashboards showing categories of services, funding sources, and priority populations served. “We have been working to develop dashboards of the information that’s collected,” she said, explaining that the county will pair service‑level information with population‑level indicators — for example, demographic and geographic breakdowns from the upcoming children’s data book — to identify service gaps.
Committee members asked how the county will use the information to measure outcomes and determine whether investments produce improvements. Duffy and other staff said the immediate aim is gap identification and that deeper program‑level evaluation will generally require dedicated evaluation resources or pilots designed with built‑in evaluation components.
The committee voted to receive the report.
