This week, the City updated its ChattaData site to include data related to job creation and investments made by companies receiving incentives. This data, which shows over a billion dollars of economic investment in Chattanooga over the last two years, includes the number of jobs created or retained as a result of each PILOT agreement, a map showing the locations of companies receiving a PILOT agreement within Chattanooga and Hamilton County, and the investment that occurred as a result of a PILOT agreement in each year.
In addition, all City PILOT agreements and related data are free and available on the Open Data Portal for any citizen to access. Along with a link to each available agreement, the Open Data Portal includes important information, where available, including legislation, jobs commitment, investment by company, and property assessment.
“While we have been working diligently to recruit businesses over the past two years, we have also been working to have a more transparent process for our economic incentives,” said Mayor Andy Berke. “This data set allows citizens to see that our agreements now have tougher consequences for companies that don’t meet their goals, a better application process, increased reporting, and a new economic development fee. These improvements are beneficial to both companies and our constituents.”
For the City, this latest release is part of the overall effort to increase the number of datasets available for public consumption. In September of 2014, the Berke Administration launched its ChattaData performance website, making Chattanooga one of a dozen cities in the country providing an online platform to present and analyze data. Any citizen can visit performance.chattanooga.gov to track the City of Chattanooga’s progress on reducing violence, growing the local economy, improving literacy, strengthening connectivity through transportation, and a host of various goals related to community priorities.
On May 31, 2014, Mayor Berke signed an executive order creating the first Open Data Policy for the City of Chattanooga. Through the executive order, the Berke Administration adopted open standards to improve transparency of City government functions, provide more access to public information, and improve coordination and efficiencies among organizations across the public, non-profit, and private sectors. At the same time, the City launched the Open Data Portal to provide citizens access to the data collected by the City and the community.
Source: Office of the Mayor