Documentation
About
Debugging Fairfax is a civic transparency project focused on making local government budgets visible, verifiable, and understandable.
Project Overview
Local governments publish large volumes of public information, but these materials are often fragmented, highly aggregated, and difficult for residents to interpret without specialized background. As a result, even motivated citizens struggle to answer basic questions about where their tax dollars go.
Systems Lens
Debugging Fairfax approaches local government the way engineers approach complex systems:
- Data is the source code
- Budgets are functions
- Spending categories are variables
- Inconsistencies are bugs
- Unknowns are TODOs
Why It Matters
The goal is not to simplify reality, but to make it inspectable so residents can see the underlying numbers for themselves.