Department: County Administration
Department Head/Elected Official: David Berry, County Administrator
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Financial Authorization
Project ID (if applicable): N/A
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request by the Office of County Administration for approval of five positions effective July 1, 2023 and to appropriate $568K in ARPA funding to create a Data Fellows Program aimed at creating a pipeline of talent for departments to support their growing data and analytics needs.
end
Background and Discussion:
The data fellows program will work to empower county government agencies to improve their services to citizens through data-driven decision-making. The program seeks to attract talented data analysts who are passionate about using data to create positive impact in their communities.
We believe that the County Data Fellows will help to drive the culture of data-driven decision-making create positive change for Harris County citizens and is a unique opportunity for data analysts to make a significant impact on their communities while developing their skills in a supportive and collaborative environment.
The Program will aim to hire 4 data fellows at a cost of $100K (including benefits) per year as well as 1 Program Manager who would provide hands on guidance on project management and technical support.
Data fellows would likely have technical background in science, technology, engineering, and math or relevant experience in data analysis and/or programming with a view to not just connecting the data but providing actual insights and recommendations. They will be supporting projects like:
• Automating manual data reporting tasks to save time
• Developing dashboards or analytics tools for strategic decision-making
• Evaluating programs or policies using data analysis to optimize resource allocation
• Improving existing spreadsheet models or tools with formulas, pivot tables, and macros
• Designing and implement a relational database for efficient data storage and analysis
Departments would be requesting data fellows using a survey. The fellows will be assigned to departments on a first come first serve basis with the qualification that department was able to provide a clear description of the work they will be doing and what success of their project would look like/the impact it will have.
Expected Impact:
This program would serve two purposes:
1. The lack of talent, or inability to access talent, seems to be a critical limitation for departments to support their numerous data related projects, including gathering KPIs for the service level reporting, and this would help provide a pipeline of talent that could help departments tackle their high priority data projects.
2. Create opportunities for individuals with data manipulation, visualization and analysis to come work for the County. These individuals would receive centralized training through the Office of Performance and Data as well continued mentorship on skills development or project specific troubleshooting.
Alternative Options:
Allow departments to source this talent themselves. This would be inefficient, and the supportive cohort model provides more guidance and mentorship between the new hires - scaling knowledge and building relationships for easier retention and easier scaling for recruitment.
Alignment with Goal(s):
_ Justice and Safety
_ Economic Opportunity
_ Housing
_ Public Health
_ Transportation
_ Flooding
_ Environment
X Governance and Customer Service
Prior Court Action (if any):
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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Location:
Address (if applicable):
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Fiscal and Personnel Summary |
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Service Name |
Performance and Data |
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FY 23 |
FY 24 |
Next 3 FYs |
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Incremental Expenditures (do NOT write values in thousands or millions) |
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Labor Expenditures |
$530,000 |
$ |
$ |
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Non-Labor Expenditures |
$38,000 |
$ |
$ |
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Total Incremental Expenditures |
$568,000 |
$ |
$ |
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Funding Sources (do NOT write values in thousands or millions) |
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Existing Budget |
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Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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$ |
$ |
$ |
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$ |
$ |
$ |
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Total Current Budget |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Additional Budget Requested |
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2651 - American Rescue Plan 2021 |
$568,000 |
$ |
$ |
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Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Total Additional Budget Requested |
$568,000 |
$ |
$ |
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Total Funding Sources |
$568,000 |
$ |
$ |
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Personnel (Fill out section only if requesting new PCNs) |
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Current Position Count for Service |
- |
- |
- |
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Additional Positions Requested |
5 |
- |
- |
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Total Personnel |
5 |
- |
- |
Anticipated Court Date: 5/16/23
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date): 7/1/23
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Note: COVID-19 related item
Contact(s) name, title, department: Gayatri Garg, Managing Director, Office of Performance and Data, Office of County Administration
Attachments (if applicable):
1. Data Fellows Presentation
2. 3441s