Have you ever wondered why you never see Connecticut mentioned?

More Data Available for RI

The folks at the Ocean State Policy Research Institute pulled together a website for Rhode Islanders to provide feedback on the federal stimulus project.  Taxpayers may cast your vote for the project that you feel are critical or projects you deem unnecessary right now.  Visit Rhode Island Stimulus Watch here.  

Also, Fifty-five new documents were added to the RI Data website just this week.  You can view the documents by clicking here to go to the Transparency Train.  OSPRI also updated RI Votes for the current legislative session.  Keep up the good work, Rhode Island!

Utah Right on Target

There are several important transparency updates in Utah right now.  The Sutherland Institute has been active in getting the payroll data for FY2009 added to the state’s transparency website, transparent.utah.gov.  This was part of legislation, sponsored by Senator Niederhauser in 2008.  Sutherland found that among other things, for every $2 that state employees receive in wages, they get another $1 in benefits on average.  This leads me to wonder what else we’ll find as state spending becomes more available to taxpayers.  

Sutherland also just completed an essay contest for young Utahans as a way to expand interest and use of the website.  Students submitted essays on how the state transparency website can be used to improve Utah schools and governance.  Be sure to check out Sutherland’s website in the coming weeks for the winning essays.  Quality work!

Colorado Group Helps out Taxpayers

Colorado’s Independence Institute recently published an interactive Google map that makes every financial disclosure available for all Representatives and Senators of the current Colorado General Assembly.  While each state senator and representative is required by law to file a financial disclosure every year for constituents to see, these supposedly “open record” documents are not available online from the Secretary of State’s office.  Thanks Independence Institute for putting the map online for constituents to utilize!  

New Transparency Website in Illinois

The Illinois Policy Institute just launched a new transparency website, IllinoisOpenGov.org.  The website gives taxpayers in Illinois an easily accessible source of information on spending in the state.  It provides information on each agency or person.  IllionoisOpenGov.org takes raw spending data, provided directly from government sources and compiles it in a searchable format to make it easy for you to research and analyze government spending.  You may search payroll data, retiree pensions, as well as view the state’s check register.  The website also features a spending blog and a forum for you to comment or ask questions about the data.  This is a great tool for Illinois taxpayers to see how the state is spending your money.  Click here to check it out!

State Spending