Investigating local budgets

Investigate local budgets:
lessons from
datajournalism
projects
// Journalism++
Since 2011, based in Paris and Berlin.
What do we do?
➢ Datajournalism investigations
➢ Datavisualizations for clients
➢ Training and journalism education
The Football Tax
Tracing the millions taxpayers give to
professional football
// The Football Tax
As we wanted to investigate on public budget, we identified
three challenges:
➢ How to get people interested in public finance
➢ How to investigate a very technical topic
➢ How to visualize public spending
// The Football Tax: interesting?
Yes, public budget is a boring topic.
But when you start digging into the data, a lot of stories
come out in all clubs.
We spotted a few “scandals” that all follow the same
patterns.
// Subsidize an organization
without a trace
In-kind subsidies
➢ Organizations need office or land space;
➢ public bodies have plenty;
➢ Public bodies waive the payment of the rent or
(smarter) set it slightly below market prices.
// FC Girondins de Bordeaux
Rent: 1,200€ per month
// Building assets without a trace
in the books
Smart use of PPPs
1. Public body ask a private company to build a stadium;
2. They pay a yearly rent that is worth more than the
asset price.
In a single formula:
duration of contract * rent > price of asset
// Matmut Atlantique Stadium
Official cost for the city: €19m
Real cost: €220m
// Giving cash subsidies without a
trace
The emphyteutic lease
➢ The public body lend a plot to organization A under an
emphyteutic lease;
➢ They subsidize the construction of assets on the plot of
the value they want to give;
➢ They cancel the emphyteutic lease and give a
compensation of the value of the asset;
➢ The public body rent the asset for free to organization
A.
// Racing Club de Strasbourg
Alsace
How to give €4m in cash
// So easy, just ask for the public
budgets from the city council...
Well, not exactly. Scandals are not in the
books.
// So easy, just ask for the public
budgets from the city council...
Also, public spendings doesn’t mean that it
is… public!
// Problem 1: Access to the
information
Problems (Nîmes, France):
- “Hello, can we have the list of subsidies paid by the city
in 2013?
- I’m not allowed to communicate administrative
documents”
- “I can’t answer that by phone, I could lose my job”.
// Problem 1: Access to the
information
Problems (Nice, France):
- “Hello, can we have the list of subsidies paid by the city
in 2013?
- I only talk to real journalists”
// Problem 1: Access to the
information
Problems (Sochaux, France):
- “Hello, can we have the decisions of the city council?
- Sure, they’re printed and displayed in front the building”
// Problem 2: PDF, PDF, PDF…
// Problem 3: the material is huge
In theory.
There is plenty of data that you can ask to public
administrations. Problem is that every city is different, and
you have to ask them one by one.
// Solutions we tried
Documents must be processed manually:
➢ Workshops with journalism students or professionals
...but journalists don’t understand accounting:
➢ Tutorials and quizzes to give a crash course in public
accounting.
// We had a few good surprises
“I never knew public budgets could be
that interesting!”
// Solutions we tried
A global task forces need its own tool to coordinate:
➢ We build a website to browse the data
// Solutions we tried
People must be able to understand the different
administrative layers that give money:
➢ We made a lot of charts describing the money flows
// Solutions we tried
In every club analysed, we found the same patterns and
scandals.
➢ We created a set of recipes to cook in the books!
TBA
// Did it work?
We do have a lot of data and stories that are now ready to go
public. But local budget is still a boring topic.
Also during our investigations, we realised that many
journalists already did the same work for their city/country.
We still need to find a way to reinforce the global network
of investigators on this topic to achieve a bigger impact
// Did it work?
Other initiatives: in Spain
http://desmanesdelfutbol.com/
// Did it work?
Other initiatives: in Netherlands
http://www.platform-investico.nl/artikel/gemeenten-steun-aan-profvoetbal/
// Next steps
➢ Focus on stories instead of single money flow
➢ Create a global database of scandals for each club in
Europe
Publication end of 2016 with lots of
local newsoutlets.
Any
question?
@annelisebouyer and @pirhoo on Twitter
bonjour@jplusplus.org