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The Data Branch

Scattered records in. One comparable price out.

Every agency's purchasing record is already public, and every agency's purchasing record is stranded somewhere different. We collect it from where it already lives, make it comparable across places, and hand it back to the people who have to sign the next contract.

Step one

1

We find it where it lives.

No agency publishes its purchasing in the same place as its neighbour. Some post it, some file it, some will only release it on request. We work all of those channels at once so no single office has to do anything unusual.

Public records requests

Formal FOIA and state open-records requests for purchasing exports, filed agency by agency.

Board and council packets

The bills, warrants and claims lists that governing bodies approve and publish every month.

Transparency portals

Open checkbooks, check registers and spending dashboards that agencies already run themselves.

Agency websites

Purchasing and bid pages, often nothing more than a folder of PDF links kept by the front office.

E-procurement and state systems

Bid portals and the statewide databases agencies already file their awards into.

Agencies who send it directly

Staff who email us an export because it is faster than a records request. See what to send.

Step two

2

We make it comparable.

This is the part no single agency can do alone. A scanned warrant list from one county and a spreadsheet export from another have to end up speaking the same language before anyone can compare a price.

The Data Branch

Every file, whatever shape it arrived in, goes through the same four steps.

  • Read itScans, PDFs, spreadsheets and photographed pages are all turned into text we can work with.
  • Sort itEach document is identified for what it is: a purchase order, a contract, a payment register, an award.
  • Normalize itVendors, products and units are reconciled so the same thing bought in two states reads as the same thing.
  • Connect itA purchase sits next to the contract that set its price, the minutes that approved it, and the peers who bought it elsewhere.

Step three

3

It goes back to the people who spend it.

The record comes from public agencies, so it belongs back with public agencies. Anyone with a quote in front of them can check what peers paid before they sign it.

Purchasing officers

Check a quote against what comparable agencies actually paid, before the renewal goes out.

Finance and business offices

Defend a budget line with evidence, and find where the same spend is running high.

Superintendents and managers

See how the agency's purchasing compares with the districts and cities next door.

Boards, auditors and the public

Trace any figure back to the document, the agency and the page it came from.

Why we do it this way. None of this invents a new secret. Purchase orders, contracts, budgets and board packets are already public records, and the only reason a purchasing officer cannot see what the next county paid is that nobody has ever gathered it in one place. That gathering is the work, and giving it back is the point. Read our philosophy for the operating rules behind it.

Take part

Check what peers paid before you sign.

Agencies that share what they already have make the answers sharper for everyone who asks next, including themselves.

See what to send Open the app