The City of Bellevue announced on Tuesday, Dec. 8 that it was selected to participate in the new “What Works Cities” initiative, taking a huge step toward making its data easy to access and open to the public.

The initiative is a national drive sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies which wants to connect mid-sized cities to enhance the use of data and evidence to look for solutions to problems which may arise.

Mayor Claudia Balducci said Bellevue has made increasing use of data in the last 15 years, and the What Works Cities initiative would help hone those skills.

“We’re very excited and proud to announce that Bellevue has been selected for What Works Cities,” she said. “The data used could be almost anything, cities generate a tremendous amount of data. By unleashing the power of data, we will build capacity in our operations, increase transparency and improve the way services are delivered to Bellevue residents.”

An open data portal on the City of Bellevue’s website is scheduled for early 2016. Residents will be able to access data easily and efficiently, said Sabra Schneider, chief operating officer of information technology.

“We are committed to building apps against data which can benefit our residents,” she said. “We can set a framework for open data and problem solving.”

Balducci said she expects a more open city budget will get an ample amount of attention in the open data portal.

Support from Bloomberg, the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University, the Government Performance Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School, Sunlight Foundation and The Behavioral Insights Team will all work together to increase efficiency in analyzing data and share that with the public.

What Works Cities was started up in April of this year, and 21 cities with a population between 100,000 and 1 million were selected in the first two rounds. Some of these cities include Anchorage, Alaska, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Las Vegas, Nevada and Denver, Colorado. Seattle was selected in August and Tacoma joins Bellevue in the December group.

The 21 cities represent eight million Americans and budgets of more than $31 billion.

Rich Siegel, performance and outreach coordinator for the City of Bellevue, explained exactly what the initiative was looking to do.

“Everyone uses data all the time in your life,” he said. “An example we have already been using is data collected by the police department. They have dived into data particularly well and track it on a daily basis.”

The Bellevue Police Department can track trends and see where more of an officer presence might be needed. The planned open data portal will allow residents to see this data, and data points like traffic snarls, flood chokepoints and open city documents.

Sharman Stein, director of communications for What Works Cities, said the campaign was a $42 million initiative working to rapidly connect mid-sized cities.

“The goal is to work with 100 mid-sized cities to use data and evidence to improve all kinds of responses to problems,” she said. “We want to analyze what’s working and what’s not and use evidence to inform people.”

The current number of cities will connect and establish best practices to make sure resources are being used in the most efficient way they can identify. Besides the data, city officials hope to use What Works Cities to keep a high level of performance among city employees.

Toni Rezab, assistant finance director for Bellevue, said the cost of implementing the program would be minimal.

“Bloomberg is coming to us as a technical assistant,” she said. “We already had most of these things and were dedicated to most of these projects already.”

The advisors will provide city government expertise and improve ways of accessing data.

Balducci said that might be an easier path than they expect.

“We already do a pretty good job with that,” she said. “I think they might be surprised.”