OpenData Labs

Engineering insights and technical deep dives from the OpenData team.

How a 1963 Law Gives One Texas District $23,000 Per Student While Yours Gets $13,000

How a 1963 Law Gives One Texas District $23,000 Per Student While Yours Gets $13,000

South Texas ISD collects local property taxes and full state aid while paying zero recapture, under a 1963 law, and has banked $226 million in surpluses.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 17, 2026·27 min read

Kelvo Is Now Open Source

Kelvo Is Now Open Source

Kelvo is an open-source menu bar system monitor for Apple Silicon Macs. Its charts name the process behind a fan ramp or a CPU spike, and it uses under 1% of one CPU core while it sits in the menu bar.

Riley Hilliard·Oct 8, 2026·9 min read

Texas TIA Funding Map 2026-27, by School District

Texas TIA Funding Map 2026-27, by School District

The 2026-27 TIA funding map for every Texas district: what each designation is worth by campus, why amounts differ, and how much of the money reaches teachers.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 27, 2026·6 min read

Every Dollar in the 2026 Texas Railroad Commissioner Race

Every Dollar in the 2026 Texas Railroad Commissioner Race

Two oil billionaires backed Bo French's 2026 Texas Railroad Commissioner primary win. Jon Rosenthal raised a tenth as much from three times as many donors.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 15, 2026·10 min read

Overdose Deaths Are Falling. The West Hasn't Caught Up.

Overdose Deaths Are Falling. The West Hasn't Caught Up.

US overdose deaths fell more than a third from their 2023 peak, but the decline is concentrated in the East. Per person, the West is now the deadlier half.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 13, 2026·17 min read

Greg Abbott Has 14 Times Gina Hinojosa's Money. What Does It Do?

Greg Abbott Has 14 Times Gina Hinojosa's Money. What Does It Do?

Abbott has raised 14 times what Hinojosa has, and public polls still show a close race. The clearest record of what followed his money is in Republican primaries, the 2025 voucher law and state board seats.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 13, 2026·28 min read

Every Dollar in the 2026 Michigan Senate Race

Every Dollar in the 2026 Michigan Senate Race

The 2026 Michigan Senate race has drawn $118 million in outside spending. Inside the Rogers and El-Sayed donor files, and $55 million of DeVos family money.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 11, 2026·20 min read

Every Dollar in the 2026 Texas Senate Race

Every Dollar in the 2026 Texas Senate Race

In the Paxton-Talarico Texas Senate race, 80% of Paxton's itemized dollars come from max-out donors and 80% of Talarico's gifts are $100 or less.

Riley Hilliard·Sep 2, 2026·19 min read

Net Interest on the $40T US Debt Now Costs More Than the Entire Defense Budget

Open DataReport

Net Interest on the $40T US Debt Now Costs More Than the Entire Defense Budget

Gross federal debt crossed $40 trillion in August 2026 and has been paid off once since 1790. The interest alone now costs more than the defense budget.

Riley Hilliard·Aug 21, 2026·26 min read

22 Years: The Lag Between Leaded Gasoline and Violent Crime

22 Years: The Lag Between Leaded Gasoline and Violent Crime

US airborne lead fell 98% after the leaded gasoline ban. Violent crime fell on the 22-year lag the lead-crime hypothesis predicts. 20,733 children test high.

Riley Hilliard·Aug 20, 2026·6 min read

The Canary in the Codebase

The Canary in the Codebase

QA, data science, SRE and mobile web folded into product engineering over a decade, before AI arrived. Software is the test case for white-collar work.

Riley Hilliard·Aug 17, 2026·24 min read

Is 10.5% Short Bad? It Depends on the Year

Is 10.5% Short Bad? It Depends on the Year

California collects one annual financial form from all 482 cities, down to the line item. Comparing a city to its peers still takes a week in a queue.

Riley Hilliard·Aug 6, 2026·30 min read

Only One State Came Back

Only One State Came Back

Between 2019 and 2024 only one state posted a meaningful gain in 4th-grade NAEP reading. How an agency can see nation, state, district and campus in one place.

Riley Hilliard·Jul 24, 2026·20 min read

The Teacher Incentive Allotment, Five Years In

The Teacher Incentive Allotment, Five Years In

Texas's Teacher Incentive Allotment reached 42,294 teachers and $481 million in 2025, about one in ten teachers and under 1% of district education spending.

Riley Hilliard·Jul 23, 2026·20 min read

Your Power Bill Is Paying for the AI Boom

Your Power Bill Is Paying for the AI Boom

Washington, D.C. electricity prices are up 64.5% since 2022 and Maryland over 40%, against 18.5% nationally. PJM capacity repricing explains most of it.

Riley Hilliard·Jul 18, 2026·22 min read

AISD Is Heading for State Takeover. Here's What Happened to Houston.

AISD Is Heading for State Takeover. Here's What Happened to Houston.

Burnet and Webb posted a fifth straight F in TEA's preliminary ratings, putting Austin ISD in range of state takeover. Houston's three years show what follows.

Riley Hilliard·Jul 15, 2026·34 min read

92.5%: The Two and a Half Points That Brought Measles Back

92.5%: The Two and a Half Points That Brought Measles Back

US kindergarten MMR coverage is 92.5%, but states below the 90% herd-immunity line tripled since 2009 and measles killed three Americans in 2025.

Riley Hilliard·Jul 7, 2026·33 min read

$148 Billion in Texas School Debt the State Can't Touch

$148 Billion in Texas School Debt the State Can't Touch

Texas school districts carry $148.2 billion in bond debt paid by I&S property taxes recapture cannot touch, so rich districts build stadiums with local money.

Riley Hilliard·Jul 2, 2026·26 min read

Same Poverty, Different Systems

Same Poverty, Different Systems

Austin ISD's low-income students trail all ten Rio Grande Valley districts compared here on STAAR, and Houston's and Dallas's too. Funding and language-program oversight remain state responsibilities.

Riley Hilliard·Jun 30, 2026·29 min read

How Three Texas Districts Claimed 50,000 Students and $432 Million a Year

How Three Texas Districts Claimed 50,000 Students and $432 Million a Year

Three small Texas districts enroll 50,000 virtual students and draw $432 million a year in state aid through academies that push them under the recapture line.

Riley Hilliard·Jun 18, 2026·21 min read

Four Numbers by Thursday

Four Numbers by Thursday

A Texas Senate campaign needs county numbers on uninsured rates, child poverty, fentanyl deaths and housing in 30 hours. All free, across five agencies.

Riley Hilliard·May 23, 2026·9 min read

Three Frameworks, One HTML File: Building Interactive UIs Inside AI Chat

Data Engineering

Three Frameworks, One HTML File: Building Interactive UIs Inside AI Chat

An MCP App that renders interactive charts inside Claude Desktop and ChatGPT: three rendering frameworks, 1,400 deleted lines of auth, and sandbox debugging.

Riley Hilliard·May 19, 2026·13 min read

Florida Already Answered the Voucher Question

Florida Already Answered the Voucher Question

Texas launched a $1 billion voucher program modeled on Florida's. Two years of Florida data show enrollment cliffs, school closures and no measure of results.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 24, 2026·41 min read

What Vouchers Will Cost Austin ISD

What Vouchers Will Cost Austin ISD

274,000 Texas families applied for school vouchers. Florida's two-year record projects enrollment cliffs and a growing deficit for Austin ISD.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 24, 2026·16 min read

The $47 Drug That Costs $10,000: How Middlemen Inflate American Healthcare

The $47 Drug That Costs $10,000: How Middlemen Inflate American Healthcare

The same generic leukemia pill costs $47 at Cost Plus Drugs and over $10,000 through traditional pharmacy channels. The markup is middlemen, not chemistry.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 19, 2026·21 min read

93 Datasets, 22 Sources, One API Call

Data EngineeringOpen Data

93 Datasets, 22 Sources, One API Call

US healthcare spending runs $5.3 trillion a year, described by data scattered across CMS, CDC, FDA and other agencies. 93 datasets, 22 sources, one API call.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 18, 2026·9 min read

The Variance Is the Story

The Variance Is the Story

CDC WONDER suppresses your county data. CMS gives you 328,000 rows with cryptic headers. What happens when you put both datasets in one place.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 18, 2026·11 min read

Following the Money: How Austin ISD Ended Up $181 Million Short

Following the Money: How Austin ISD Ended Up $181 Million Short

Austin ISD faces a $181 million deficit while local property values tripled. Recapture, charter growth and a flat per-student allotment explain the gap.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 10, 2026·29 min read

The Students Left Behind: Charter Growth and the Hollowing Out of Texas Public Schools

The Students Left Behind: Charter Growth and the Hollowing Out of Texas Public Schools

Texas charter enrollment has grown 40-fold since 1998 to nearly half a million students. The students left in traditional districts are poorer and score worse.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 9, 2026·9 min read

11,654 Lines of Beyonce, Counted

11,654 Lines of Beyonce, Counted

A word-by-word analysis of Beyonce's lyric catalog: who she sings to, what tense she writes in, how much she repeats, and where love and power rank.

Riley Hilliard·Apr 4, 2026·7 min read

Data Engineering

Remix as a Middle Layer: Patterns from Production

Using React Router v7 as a reverse proxy, data orchestrator, SEO engine and boot loader between the browser and a Python API, with production patterns.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 31, 2026·11 min read

Designing an API for LLMs, Not Humans

Data Engineering

Designing an API for LLMs, Not Humans

Claude took 72 API calls to research US healthcare costs on OpenData, and 8 after three rounds of agent feedback. What changed in the API design.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 29, 2026·9 min read

Why Your Charts Don't Get Shared (And Chartr's Do)

Why Your Charts Don't Get Shared (And Chartr's Do)

Chartr reached 500,000 subscribers with headline-first framing, minimal chrome and charts sized for social. What that changes for anyone publishing data.

James Freedman·Mar 26, 2026·8 min read

OpenChart Is Now Open Source

VisualizationOpen Source

OpenChart Is Now Open Source

The charting library behind OpenData's visualizations is now open source: spec-driven, headless, framework-agnostic, built for publication-quality output.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 25, 2026·8 min read

Is Middle-Class Life Harder Than It Used to Be?

Is Middle-Class Life Harder Than It Used to Be?

US consumer prices rose 202% since 1984, but a new home went from 3.5 years of median income to 5. Housing, healthcare, and tuition all grew faster than the CPI, and faster than wages.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 24, 2026·27 min read

VisualizationOpen Source

Using Claude as a Logo Design Agency

A Claude Code skill that teaches Claude logo design principles. Give it a product description, iterate on feedback in 30-second cycles, and get production SVG.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 14, 2026·5 min read

28 Years, 14 Formats, One API Call

Data EngineeringOpen Data

28 Years, 14 Formats, One API Call

We spent a couple days untangling 28 years of Illinois school data so that nobody else has to. Here's what OpenData is building, and why it matters.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 12, 2026·13 min read

One in Four Illinois Students Is Chronically Absent. It's Getting Worse.

Open DataReport

One in Four Illinois Students Is Chronically Absent. It's Getting Worse.

Chronic absence in Illinois schools rose from 16.8% of students in 2018 to about one in four by 2025. Eight years of Report Card data against test scores.

Riley Hilliard·Mar 10, 2026·11 min read