For better or worse, every agency in Florida collects voluminous amounts of data that is stored on public servers, organized, summarized and used to track every
activity the bureaucracy engages in from start to finish. They use the data in a variety of ways, such as data sharing with other agencies, tracking and analytics of internal and external trends, to use in predictive modeling and documenting agency actions taken.
State agencies also rely heavily on select portions of data collected in generating annual, semi-annual and ad-hoc reports that are designed to highlight and emphasize agency action statistics, and the effects they consider to be positive regulatory action impact, while often remaining silent or de-emphasizing economic, financial, societal, and employment outcomes that may not demonstrate the efficacy of all their activities, nor curry favor with the public.
They provide these reports to the legislature, elected officials in the executive branch, and the public to prove their worth and often to justify expansion of their authority via legislation or rule-making. Regarding these vast stores of data, it could be said that while agencies don’t exactly hide potential negative consequences of their actions, neither do they advertise all the data analysis and measures that would be necessary to understand and access an agency’s performance and impact.
Luckily, most of the source data collected and stored and used by agencies is available under the Florida Sunshine law. We shall obtain and utilize the annual reports, combined with the source data to provide a more complete picture of all the pertinent facts necessary to fully access agency actions and their impact on individuals and the general welfare.