Budget website shines light on state spending
June 24, 2009
This editorial originally appeared in the Tacoma News Tribune and The Olympian
Have you ever wondered how much the Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) spends on travel? Or how much the Liquor Board spends on salaries and wages?
Thanks to the actions of state officials last year the answers to these types of questions are simply a mouse click away.
By visiting fiscal.wa.gov, the state’s new budget transparency website, within minutes I had the answers to both these questions. For example, through March L&I had spent more than $9 million on travel and the Liquor Board paid out $80 million in salaries and wages during the 2007-09 biennium.
Unanimously adopted by legislators and signed into law last year, the bill authorizing fiscal.wa.gov tasked the Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program (LEAP) Committee with its creation and operation. Providing taxpayers with this accountability tool was a top priority of Washington Policy Center and other government transparency advocates. In December LEAP launched the website ahead of schedule with the assistance of the Office of Financial Management (OFM) at a cost of $300,000.
This transparency resource is starting to catch on. According to LEAP, as of May 31, Fiscal.wa.gov “hosted more than 35,000 visits, provided nearly 119,000 page views, and approximately 95,000 reports had been run.” Not bad numbers for the first six months of the site’s existence.
Not surprisingly the greatest monthly traffic occurred during the heat of the budget debate in March.
Although OFM warned LEAP that it should be prepared to staff a help desk in response to user questions (possibly full-time), this has not been the case. LEAP reports “that despite this level of activity, staff support answering questions—telephone calls and emails—has been almost nil.”
For advocates of government transparency reforms this result comes as no surprise. When you provide citizens with the ability to directly access the information they desire staff time can be freed up for other activities.
Among the information originally required to be included on the website are details on:
• state expenditures by fund or account;
• expenditures by agency, program, and subprogram;
• state revenues by source;
• state expenditures by budget object and subobject; and
• state agency workloads, caseloads, and performance measurements.
More recently, enhancements to the site have included the following:
• expanded search capability, including policy item-specific keyword searching;
• providing a single entry point on the “Budgets” page to access the relevant versions of all three budgets (omnibus, transportation, and capital);
• inclusion of a “What’s New” page and a glossary, both of which will be constantly revised and updated;
• drill-through reports and graphs on spending;
• Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping for transportation and capital projects;
• access to budget-balancing educational tools; and
• inclusion of K-12 public school district reporting.
With fiscal.wa.gov admirably highlighting state spending the next step is to focus on tax transparency.
Increasing the ease of public access to state and local tax rates will help contribute to governmental accountability, public participation, and the understanding of the cost of government services. Improved tax transparency from state and local governments would also facilitate meaningful tax competition among taxing districts as taxpayers could compare potential tax liabilities based on where they decide to live or locate their businesses.
Three Democratic Senators (Oemig, Kastama, and Jarrett) introduced a bill this year to create a searchable tax transparency website but it did not receive a hearing. Based on the success of the budget transparency website to date, lawmakers should dust off this proposal next year to help remove the mystery surrounding taxation.
In the meantime, surf on over to fiscal.wa.gov next time you are on the web to learn more about how the state is spending your tax dollars.
Jason Mercier is director of the Center for Government Reform at Washington Policy Center, a non-partisan independent policy research organization in Seattle and Olympia. Jason also serves as Treasurer of the Washington Coalition for Open Government and is a member of the 21st Century Right to Know Coalition. Contact WPC by clicking "About Us" above or by calling 206-937-9691.
