New Jersey

Leading Example

4. Innovation

The state uses innovation to achieve its priority goals and improve results for residents.

4. Innovation

Following the appointment of a Chief Innovation Officer as a cabinet-level official in 2018, the state has continued to invest in the expansion of the Office of Innovation. The office launched the Innovation Skills Accelerator, a free, online program to train state staff to use innovative methods – including design thinking, evidence-based decision-making, and collective intelligence – to solve public problems. Related to workforce issues, in May 2021, the Office of Innovation, the RSA, and The Workers Lab kicked off the Future of Work Accelerator, an open innovation challenge to recruit innovators whose work advances New Jersey’s workers’ health and safety, improves access to benefits, strengthens training opportunities, and bolsters workers’ voices.

Promising Examples

2. Performance Management

The state has achieved better outcomes through an enterprise performance management system that engages state leaders in using performance data to continuously improve results.

2. Performance Management

New Jersey’s Governor’s Performance Center tracks, on a quarterly basis, key performance indicators for each department aligned with departments’ Core Missions. Core Missions are updated across departments to reflect the values of the current administration. Additionally, outcome data are also printed in the annual Governor’s Detailed Budget Message.

Issue Areas: Child Welfare, Criminal Justice, Economic Mobility, Education, Health, Workforce

3. Culture

The state has a culture that supports the sustainable use of data and evidence to deliver results in a transparent, equitable, and ethical manner.

3. Culture

The Governor’s COVID-19 briefings constantly referenced the use of data to drive decision-making throughout the pandemic. In turn, these approaches were shared with the public in real time through the state’s COVID-19 Information Hub and a new statewide email program that reaches more than 1.5 million people each week.

The New Jersey Office of Innovation launched the Innovation Skills Accelerator, a free, online program to train state staff to use innovative methods – including design thinking, evidence-based decision-making, and collective intelligence – to solve public problems. The state regularly relies on data for messaging and performance management. One example is the annual report on the state’s response to the opioid overdose epidemic and the NJ Transit Performance Site created by an executive order.

Issue Areas: COVID-19, Health

5. Data Leadership & Governance

The state has senior leadership and governance structures with the mandate to equitably use data to improve results.

5. Data Leadership & Governance

New Jersey’s Chief Data Officer leads statewide data transparency initiatives and open data projects, such as the Open Data Center, Governor’s Transparency, Superstorm Sandy Transparency, and CARES Act Transparency website. The CDO serves as the coordinator, architect, and content manager for New Jersey’s Open Data Portal. This role also establishes best practices, administrative rules, policies, standards, procedures, and bulletins as they relate to open data, enterprise information, and data management.

Issue Areas: Child Welfare, COVID-19, Criminal Justice, Economic Mobility, Education, Health, Workforce

6. Data Policies

The state has data policies that outline the principles, people, and activities that govern its data collection and use.

6. Data Policies

New Jersey partners with Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, to operate the New Jersey Education to Earnings Data System (NJEEDS), which uses a data-sharing agreement to link data from the Departments of Education and Labor, the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, and the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. For data sharing with the public, New Jersey’s Chief Data Officer leads statewide data transparency initiatives and open data projects, such as the Open Data Center, Governor’s Transparency Center, Superstorm Sandy Transparency, and the CARES Act Transparency websites.

Issue Areas: Education, Workforce

7. Data Infrastructure

The state has improved outcomes through technology infrastructure that allows it to efficiently collect, inventory, and share data.

7. Data Infrastructure

New Jersey partners with Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, to operate the New Jersey Education to Earnings Data System (NJEEDS), a statewide longitudinal data system designed to improve the performance of state education and workforce initiatives. NJEEDS is overseen by an executive leadership council and convenes a data stewards work group from relevant state agencies. Four state agencies also partner with Rutgers to operate the Integrated Population Health Data project to promote population health research.

Issue Areas: Health

8. Data Use

The state has improved outcomes by combining and analyzing cross-agency data to inform policy, budget, or management decisions.

8. Data Use

New Jersey’s Prescription Monitoring Program integrates data from multiple state agencies, including the Department of Health, the Division of Consumer Affairs, the Office of the Attorney General, and other law enforcement bodies, to power the Overdose Data Dashboard. The Department of Health uses the dashboard to make decisions about access to medications, such as naloxone, designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose and harm reduction services.

Issue Areas: Health

12. Evaluation Use

The state has improved results by using evaluation, program inventories, and cost-benefit analysis.

12. Evaluation Use

The FY21 New Jersey budget and FY22 budget each appropriated $1 million in funding for the New Jersey Policy Lab, led by Rutgers University, that will contribute high-quality, nonpartisan research and analysis of policy-based solutions facing New Jersey. The initiative, granted by the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, will also build coalitions across governments and community organizations to support evidence-based policy initiatives, assist stakeholders in troubleshooting implementation issues, provide data modeling for policy recommendations, and evaluate the impacts of proposed statewide public policy measures.

Issue Areas: Education

Home

New Jersey

Leading Example

4. Innovation

Promising Examples

2. Performance Management

3. Culture

5. Data Leadership & Governance

6. Data Policies

7. Data Infrastructure

8. Data Use

12. Evaluation Use

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