States with spending online

From Sunshine Review

Jump to: navigation, search
National Taxpayers Union
Transparency in your state
States with spending online
Independent transparency sites
Collaborative transparency projects
Model transparency legislation
Action center
Sign up for e-updates
Take action
Where's
The Spending?

The idea that it is highly desirable for governments to disclose their spending online was given its first major victory when President George W. Bush signed the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) into law in September 2006. Sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn and Barack Obama, this bipartisan legislation requires that all federal grant and contract funding data appear online in a searchable database.[1]

Federal lawmakers issue hundreds of billions of dollars to various entities every year. The Coburn-Obama bill has therefore been lauded by transparency advocates as a great stride forward. It gives taxpayers a simple way to make sense of how legislators and agencies allocate funds.

Contents

States with Spending Online

Since S. 2590 was passed, different states have begun to implement their own transparency sites to disclose information about state government spending. The states that do disclose their spending online vary in how much they disclose. Some sites are comprehensive, while others are limited in their disclosure.

These states provide some degree of online budget and spending disclosure:

States with legislation to publish a spending database

Criteria for evaluating databases

The following table is helpful in evaluating the level of transparency provided by a state spending and transparency database:

Criteria for evaluating spending databases
State DatabaseSearchabilityGrantsContractsLine Item ExpendituresDept/Agency BudgetsPublic Employee SalaryExemption Level
Checkbook Online
$1,000 grants & contracts
KanView
--
Check It Out Kentucky!
n/a
None
V.I.E.W.
None
LaTrac

External links

References

  1. USA Spending Online