Pioneer Beats BRA

By Steve Poftak
July 7th, 2009

Warning: Blatant Self-Promotion Ahead

Yesterday’s paper had a sad tale of delay at the Boston Redevelopment Authority. A Deputy Director was hired five years ago to build a database of community benefits from development projects. She currently oversees three other staffers and the office has a yearly run rate of almost $300k in salary alone.

She notes that ““[w]e’ve been developing an automated data system, but it’s still in draft form,” Colley said. “But you can’t do that overnight or in a year or two years or three years.”

I note that Pioneer has three ‘automated data systems’ in the pipeline that will all be done in under two years. We released an online decision support tool that allowed municipal employees in Revere and Westwood to model how their out-of-pocket and premium costs would change by entering the state insurance pool. Try the GIC Estimator for yourself.

In a month or so, we will roll out an on-line school report card that will let you analyze public schools and districts across the Commonwealth. After that, an on-line database of state disbursements, pensions, and salaries is coming.

All this without the luxury of five years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money.