We recently updated the Federal Priorities Database to look more like NPP's main site over at nationalpriorities.org.

Some of the navigation has changed, but all the data is intact, and the searches work the same way. If you have any questions, get in touch at research@nationalpriorities.org.

We launched version 2.0 of the Federal Priorities Database a year ago. Since that time, we've been answering your questions, hearing your feedback, and keeping the information current. But we've also been thinking about what's next, and we've hatched a project called Backyard Budget.

We want to provide more localized data, more visualizations, and more access. We plan to address this last goal by going mobile.

The mobile piece of Backyard Budget will bring democracy to Americans’ fingertips by making federal spending data available at the hyper-local level through a mobile app. It will be ...

For the past ten weeks, the Federal Priorities Database team has been publishing a series called Data Wednesday over on NPP's main blog. If you're new to the database and are looking for some how-to information, look no further. The entire series is archived here.

This is what we’ve covered so far. If you have ideas for future Data Wednesday entries, let us know.

1. Searching the Database
2. Interpreting the Map
3. Time Traveling on the Map
4. Adjusting for Inflation
5. Table View
6. Downloading Data
7. County Data
8. Linking to Search Results
9. Federal Money in the States
10. Embedding Search Results

Three months ago, National Priorities Project officially launched the second version of the Federal Priorities Database. Since then, we’ve committed to making incremental improvements: new data, better usability, and maybe even a bug fix or two.

We’re seeking to improve even more by assessing the usefulness of our datasets. There are some we’d like to research further and some that add noise, distracting from the real gems. So as 2011 winds down, we’re un-publishing the following to pave the way for useful additions in 2012:

• 21st Century Community Learning Centers
• Coal Mine Workers’ Compensation
• Community Health ...

We’re happy to announce that our expenditure datasets now include per capita numbers. In other words, you can see the amount of money spent for each person who lives in a state or county.

Why is this important? Below is a map of federal food stamp spending in FY 2010. Using the map’s legend, you can quickly see that California received the most money for this program, followed by Texas, New York, and Florida.

And here’s a map of FY 2010 State Children’s Insurance Program (CHIP) spending. Again, California and Texas got the most funding.

In ...

We updated the database to fix three things. A big thank you to those who brought these issues to our attention—you know who you are!

The bug fix:
Data downloads (all three formats: CSV, JSON, and XML) for counties are working now.

The usability fix:
When you’re viewing county-level data, the corresponding state name now appears on the page. This is good news for those of us who can’t tell the difference between Colorado and Wyoming out of context.

The scheduled Federal Priorities Database downtime is now complete, and the site is back online. The first half of the planned changes went smoothly. The second half, however, took much longer than expected.

From your perspective, this means that when using a handful of the expenditure datasets, you won't see the expected county-level performance boost. We'll be caching those over the weekend.

This change may not sound exciting, but optimizing now allows us to expand in the future. Subscribe to this blog, and you’ll be the first to know when we roll out new features.

The Federal Priorities Database will be down for scheduled maintenance tonight beginning around 9 PM

During this time (several hours), we'll be making some changes to improve our behind-the-scenes caching process.

What does that mean? Well, if you've ever searched for county-level data, you might have noticed the site isn't exactly speedy. Our goal is to zip up the county searches and lay the groundwork for some new and improved data.

We'll post an update here and on Twitter once the database is back up. Questions? Feel free to e-mail us at db@nationalpriorities.org.

Last week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies proposed reducing FY12 Pell Grant expenditures by changing the program’s eligibility criteria. Inside Higher Ed estimates the changes would cut $2.3 billion from the Pell Grant Program in FY 2012.

I wanted to see that $2.3 billion in the context of past allocations, so I used NPP’s Federal Priorities Database to create a chart of recent Federal Pell Grant spending:

If you’re wondering how I got these numbers, read on.

I started by searching NPP’s Federal Priorities Database ...

As fans of transparency, we’d like to be transparent about the inner workings of the Federal Priorities Database.

We’re grateful for the kind words we got after yesterday’s launch. We were also happy to receive some feedback: a request to add spending information for Adult Education.

Like all programs in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, the master list of federal programs and services that assist the American public, Adult Education yearly expenditures are reported, aggregated, and published ...