Last week’s election showed what can happen when elected officials blatantly oppose transparency. Voters in Greeley Evans School District 6 rejected a tax increase after a member of its school board not only publicly opposed transparency, but also testified against a school district transparency measure before the state legislature. It is clear that taxpayers will refuse to allow elected officials to raise property taxes if they refuse to show how they spend tax dollars. Voters made their message loud and clear last Tuesday. Way to go folks in Greeley Evans School District 6!

Utah’s Recent Transparency Developments

Utah’s transparency portal launched earlier this year. The website is dedicated to the transparency and accountability of state finances. Expenditure and revenue data for the State of Utah begins with FY 2009. Taxpayers can access information by searching funds, transaction types, vendors, categories or organizations. Recently, Utah began posting federal stimulus information, select stimulus revenue or stimulus expenses. Be sure to check out Transparent.Utah.Gov!

Pennsylvania Transparency Law Making Progress

A spending transparency bill, HB 1880, the Pennsylvania Government Accountability Portal Act, was passed out of State Government Committee yesterday. The bill would mandate the creation of a fully searchable database to allow users to search and aggregate a variety of information.

The Pennsylvania Government Accountability Portal (Penn-GAP) would contain:

Missouri Expands Transparency Portal

The Missouri Accountability Portal, created by then-Governor Blunt and currently maintained by Governor Nixon expanded to help taxpayers analyze the data provided on the website. MAP already had searchable tables of employee salaries, state spending, tax revenues and tax credits. What it didn’t have was a format to download the information in whole; instead you could download only sections of data. However, now you can download state expenditures for the past decade, either in small portions or in whole. Additionally, you may now download information on stimulus revenues and expenditures, employee salaries and tax credits. Here’s the link if you’re interested in checking out the information.

Arkansas House Rejects More Transparency

Yesterday, Arkansas representatives voted against increasing the waiting period before bills can be brought to the floor from 24 hours to 48 hours. The amendment, offered by Representative Andrea Lea, was a response to constituent requests for more time to read legislation before it is voted on. It failed with only 30 House members voting in support and 17 voting "present." The amendment did not require bills to be posted online before it hits the floor but it did bring attention to the fact that the legislative process is too rushed and, as a result, too opaque. If you are in Arkansas and would like to see if your representative voted against transparency, click here.