County equity analysis puts data in the spotlight

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

Milwaukee County experimented with machine learning to analyze statues and policies and identify biased or discriminatory language.

To identify potential inequity in the outcome of foreclosure policies and procedures, technologists in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, turned to artificial intelligence.

The experiment was part of the 2022 SAS Hackathon, a six-week-long annual event in which teams work with experts and SAS mentors to find innovative ways to solve challenges. The county chose to use their access to SAS Viya software running on Microsoft Azure to study foreclosure data as part of a larger effort to reduce inequity.

In 2020, the County Board passed an ordinance declaring racial equity a public health crisis and committing the government to, among other initiatives, “track and analyze data to better understand the impact of County services and find solutions accordingly.”

One of the county’s projects called for analyzing regulations from “years and years and years ago” to find places that inappropriately codified racism into statutes, said Kathy Henrich, chief executive officer of the two-year-old Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition, which has the mission of inclusively doubling tech talent in the region. Instead of manually reading through all the statutes, the team leveraged SAS machine learning to analyze the words of county policies and ordinances for biased or discriminatory language. The team used “AI technologies to help uncover most likely places so that they could then dig in further,” she said.  

Henrich and her team worked with SAS and the county to define the challenge statement, and then the county collected the data to be analyzed. That amounted to reaching out to holders of publicly available foreclosure data and receiving Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that were uploaded to Viya, said Lynn Fyhrlund, chief information officer for Milwaukee County.

“Because we only had 30 days to do this process, there wasn’t much of a formalized procedure. It was, ‘Hey, where can we get the data? How fast can we get it and can we get it into our system?” Fyhrlund said. “Part of this, to be very upfront, is we realized that we have lots of data. It’s siloed all over the place and there’s not been data stewards around it. It’s something we’re working on internally ourselves, but this project highlighted how important your data is.”

Additionally, it was the county’s first foray into artificial intelligence and machine learning – areas the county doesn’t have much expertise in, he added.

That’s OK, said James Caton, head of smart cities partnerships at SAS. “Customers come to the hackathon with the problem and the data,” he said. “We provide that structured environment for them to organize the data, analyze the data, validate the insights. It’s a low-risk and high-reward way for cities and organizations to innovate because they’re able to work in a structured environment that provides all the tooling and the mentoring for them to really focus on a problem and very quickly iterate on it and come to some resolution.”

The results from the hackathon, which started March 1, were inconclusive, Fyhrlund said. “But that also tells us a lot about our data: Where is our data going to come from? How are we going to put that data together? Do we have to look at how we’re collecting data and go back to departments and processes to make sure we’re collecting the right data?” he said.

He said the experience worked in parallel with other related equity initiatives. For instance, the county has a strategy dashboard that serves as a performance management tool and supports transparency and accountability. It currently includes data on the workforce, mortality and overdoses. Future datasets include demographics, health rankings, housing and employment.

What’s more, the county recently created an enterprise data services team and last month created a data strategy. “It wasn’t because of this process,” Fyhrlund said of the hackathon. “I think what this process did was help reinforce that we’re on the right path.”

Stephanie Kanowitz is a freelance writer based in northern Virginia.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.