ALBANY - that 64 more local governments across the state have signed up to share their data on open.ny.gov, a new and comprehensive data transparency website – just three days after its launch at the start of Sunshine Week, a national initiative designed to raise awareness about the importance of open government. With five localities already sharing data on the site, today’s announcement means that 69 localities statewide have now signed up to participate in open.ny.gov.

Open.ny.gov provides user-friendly, one-stop access to data for the first time from New York State agencies, localities, and the federal government. It features economic development, recreation, health, and public services information in a format that is retrieved, downloaded, indexed, and searched by commonly used web search applications.

“With the launch of open.ny.gov, New York State has taken another step toward greater transparency in government,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “In addition to reducing costs and housing data for localities, this website helps connect government on all levels with the people it serves. I’m pleased to announce 64 additional local governments have pledged to participate in open.ny.gov, and I encourage others to join us in making government more accessible to all New Yorkers.”

Open.ny.gov has been offered as a resource to localities across the state, which will give citizens unified access to government data and help local governments cut down costs and improve efficiency in addition to increasing transparency. Open.ny.gov can help local governments by fostering research, promoting informed decision-making, and enhancing collaboration based on public data. It also provides localities with increased technical capacity to make their data public. The State will provide assistance to all localities that choose to use the service.

At Monday’s launch, five local governments – the Counties of Essex, Oneida, Onondaga, and Suffolk as well as the City of Albany – had already begun sharing their data on the website. Only three days later, an additional 15 counties, 22 cities, 25 towns, and seven villages have signed up to join open.ny.gov and share their data with the public. Following today’s announcement, the state Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) will now work with the 64 new partner localities to post their data at open.ny.gov. New data will be available on a rolling basis.