First, if you’re not up on how SB241 got up to the point it did with the House Taxation Committee read the two posts previous to this one in the Transparency category. 

We pick up this little saga with SB241, a bill with 84 bipartisan cosponsors, being tabled in House Taxation with a vote that I haven’t yet been able to find a record of; MPI has launched a statewide campaign aimed at getting the only on-record opponent to the bill (the Governor) to support letting Montanans see where their tax dollars go in more than empty rhetoric; and Rep. Wiseman has introduced HJ43 - a resolution that pretty much calls for what SB241 called for but without any funding or deliverable other than a report to the 2011 legislature.  And then the silliness begins.

Rep. Wiseman made as good a case for a transparency web site as any and we assumed he was serious about it.  In fact, as soon as we found out Rep. Wiseman introduced HJ43 we figured a deal had been made making it the only game in town, so MPI offered to him any and all information and research we had accumulated from working on this issue for over a year.  This was a genuine offer based on a genuine hope of getting something from this legislature saying they thought Montanans should have easy access to government fiscal information.  He chose for whatever reasons to respond to our offer with an ad hominem attack on the house floor.  Fair enough, although a reply to our email would have sufficed.  But he had points to make so let’s render him the courtesy of examining them.  If you haven’t watched the video below now would be a good time.

1) A transparency web site’s time has come, it should be user friendly, and there’s no question that it can be done:  Yep, so far so good.  Kumbaya and all that.

2) House Taxation tabled SB241 on a bipartisan vote:  I’m still trying to track this down because it doesn’t match my information.  But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt on this one for now.  It failed a Party line vote on the floor later so it’s pretty much a moot point anyway.  However, if my guest opinion piece erred on this then that would be my fault and I’ll be happy to apologize.

3) The Governor was not trying to block SB241 or leaning on Democrats to block it.  Well, the Governor’s office was the only one to testify against SB241 in committee hearings, and only Democrats voted against a motion to bring it to the floor, even though many of those Democrats cosponsored the bill in the first place.  That might be a coincidence, I suppose.  On the other hand, I’m a fan of Occam’s razor, which says roughly that the correct answer is usually the most obvious one.

4) SB241 was a poor effort, thinly thought out, not well crafted, and obscured the true cost [of a transparency web site]: Well, I’ll let the bill’s sponsor Sen Balyeat defend the quality of his work, but he seems reasonably sharp to me. That aside, HJ43′s provisions went no further than SB241′s in seeking to research what it would take to build a web site.  What it did was move the responsibility from the professionals at the Legislative Fiscal Division (LFD) into the Finance Committee, and take away the $550,000 that LFD would have had to actually do something other than create a report.  I don’t see a lot of value-added in removing the money and the professionals from the process, but I’m just ignorant and ill-informed.

5) And finally, LFD would have all the responsibility and no budget or authority: This is simply false, as even a cursory reading of SB241 would show.  The bill provided over half a million dollars and directed Agencies to cooperate with LFD’s efforts.

This is a good time to interject a few facts just to keep things in perspective:

1) According to a recent Mercatus study, the average development cost for a state transparency site has been about $140,000.  The range has been zero to about $310,000.  The Feds did it for $600,000.  This compares to the administration’s estimate of $4 million for Montana.  Those are simple facts.  Take from them whatever you want, but it’s plain false to say that this issue hasn’t been studied.

2) States with sites that are up and running have documented savings of millions of dollars resulting from the visibility that these sites provided.

3) Free software and experience are available from over two dozen states if somebody really wants to move forward.  On the other hand, if somebody wants to stall or save face there are lots of challenges to focus on, too.  Where you stand on the opportunities versus the challenges is a pretty good indicator of where you sit on the issue.

And finally, let’s finish this little tale by describing how the stake was put in transparency’s heart.  HJ43 passed the House on a largely bipartisan vote, came out of Senate Finance unanimously, and then failed on the Senate floor in a 25-25 vote, with Republicans mostly opposing and Democrats mostly favoring.  So both Parties get credit for killing a transparency bill and I’m not even going to try and dissect the political maneuvering that brought about that result.  There are no good guys in that scenario, and you’re the loser.  That’s about all we need to know.

SB241, in its final form, fell well short of creating a transparency web site.  But it did put money and policy behind the idea.  Failing that, we didn’t need a  resolution to do a study that would have resulted in a plan.  All those things existed already.  But even that would have been better than nothing.  What we did need was an honest effort to let Montanans see where their tax dollars go and why.  We got that from some individuals but the process failed us.  And once again the taxpayers lose.

Here’s the video.  I must say we’re fairly pleased to be called mudslingers by having mud thrown at us during this first legislative session since our startup.  It would be nice to be loved, but that’s not really our job.

Wiseman on MPI

SB241 was introduced early and would have provided a comprehensive web-based transparency site for state revenues and spending.  The Governor opposed it from the beginning.  Everyone else liked it.  That bill passed the Senate and went to the House Taxation Committee, where it languished and eventually died because no Democrats on the committee would vote for it (a 10-10 vote effectively kills the bill).  So the Governor successfully killed this bill, but the battle wasn’t over.

About the time SB241 was dying, MPI ran a media campaign that contacted tens of thousands of Montanans, put the transparency issue in newspapers and TV and radio stations around the state, and otherwise made a fuss.  Right about the time that media campaign culminated, Rep Brady Wiseman, a Bozeman Democrat, introduced a Joint Resolution (HJ43) that would have supported a transparency portal and called for the Legislative Finance Committee to come up with ideas and report back to the 2011 legislature.  It appeared to be a face saving way for the Democrats to oppose an actual measure while voting for the idea of transparency.  I’m sure it felt great.

HJ43 sailed through the House with bipartisan support, passed the Senate Taxation Committee with a unanimous vote and then died ignominously on the Senate floor with a 25-25 vote, with nearly all Republicans opposing it and nearly all Democrats supporting it.  Yes, that’s right.  The Republicans are now on record as opposing transparency and the Democrats are on record as supporting it, even though it’s the Democrats who opposed it from the beginning and the Republicans who originally pushed it as a session priority.

This is politics at its worst.  The losers are us, the Montana citizens who want to see where our money goes.  Again, we’re working to get the full story, back room deals, and shenanigans that led to this debacle, but the bottom line is they win, you lose.  It’ll be two more years before you have a shot at seeing what your government is up to.

Meanwhile, MPI will be watching because that’s our job.  We’ll be coming out with a comprehensive budget report that tells you what your money will be spent on but not who gets it and why.  We’ll also be tracking stimulus dollars very carefully because the Governor, as of yesterday, vetoed the bill that created an oversight committee.  He can’t veto us, though, as long as we have your support.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that we got their attention and have a pretty good foundation for moving forward during the interim and, just as importantly, at the local and county levels.

So here’s what’s going on: SB241 – the real transparency bill that would have created a spending web portal – got tabled in the House Taxation Committee because none of the ten democrats would vote for it.  But it did come out to the floor on what’s called a blast motion, i.e. an attempt to try and blast it out of committee.  That vote failed 51-48.  Interestingly, Rep Pomnichowski from Bozeman voted on the floor to blast it out of the very committee that she wouldn’t vote for it in.  Huh?  She wouldn’t vote for the bill in the Taxation Committee as a member of that committee, but she did vote on the Floor to blast it out of Taxation when if she’d just voted for it in the committee it would have come out anyway.  Ouch, politics makes my head hurt.

But wait, there’s more.  Meanwhile Rep Wiseman – also Bozeman Democrat - quickly pulled a draft transparency bill off the proverbial shelf, turned it into a House Joint Resolution (HJ43), and introduced it on April 20th.  The Resolution says that, gee since so many Montanans have said they want a transparency web site, let’s study what it would take to get one.  Never mind that a bill’s (SB241) been sliced and diced over the past three months that would have given Montanans what they want instead of patting their heads and saying “We’ll look into it.”  With less than a week left in the session it’s apparently enough to show you care with a toothless resolution.

So what’s the good side?  We got their attention.  SB241 would have died a quiet death if there hadn’t been enormous pressure to do something about transparency.  HJ43 is a face saving way for Democrats to vote for transparency without crossing the Governor.  Or it’s the Governor saving face and giving the House Democrats a way out without having to back off of his opposition.  Or who knows what else it could be.  But the bottom line is that those who have opposed meaningful transparency and accountability throughout this session have decided that they need a way to say that they’re for it.  It’s your pressure that put them in that position, and it’s a step in the right direction.

So what does HJ43 do?  It expresses a desire on the part of the legislature to create a web portal and calls for a study on what it would take to create one along the lines of that called for in the original SB241.  Again, not great but a step in the right direction.  It went through committee like greased lightening, passed its second reading on the House floor, and appears to be on the way to easy and quick passage.  But it’s not the end of the story for citizens’ ability to see how their money is spent and what’s being done in their names.

There has been a strong trend among our elected representatives to give lip service to transparency and accountability – to tell you they care and will act responsibly – but  then to do nothing towards that end.  They know that electorates have a short attention span.  In fact they count on it.  That won’t happen this time, though.  MPI will be actively engaged to ensure words are followed by deeds whatever the outcome of this legislative session.  But it’s your pressure that makes things happen.  So we’ll do the homework but you need to assign the grades.

Our state says it will cost over $4 million for a site and almost $600,000 to figure out how to do a site.  I’ll leave it to you to come to your own conclusions about what that means.

The full study is available at: http://www.montanapolicy.org/files/pdf/Cost%20of%20Transparency%20MOP.pdf.

For context, the bill was cut apart pretty badly after the administration gave it a fiscal note of over $4 million, the bulk of which was to build a data warehouse that the state will probably need someday anyway.  What it does now is give the Legislative Fiscal Division $550,000 over the next two years to make financial reports more easily accessible and figure out what it’d take to get a real transparency portal like those found in other states and with the federal government.  That’s not great, but it’s still moving in the right direction and makes it a matter of policy to eventually get a portal.

Seven individuals and groups testified in favor of the bill, including Montana Taxpayers Association, Montana Society of CPA’s, Montana Newspaper Association, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.  The gist was it’s our data, let us see it without having to fight through a maze of outdated public records laws. 

The only testimony in opposition was the Governor’s office.  They basically said that for a 42 cent stamp or an email you can ask for anything you’d like and that’s good enough.  Then they said that the bill wouldn’t do much anyway with only half a million dollars and it’ll be at least the 2011 biennium and maybe later before anything like a transparency portal is created.  Let’s look at that for a moment.

First, as we’ve talked about many times, unless you’re incredibly well versed on where records are, what they consist of, and how to ask for them, your efforts will probably get you a response like this one recently received by a friend of MPI’s when they asked where to ask for some state records that they have a right to see:

Dear Mr. xx,

 Thank you for your e-mail to the State of Montana.

 I suggest you make any public records (including electronic records) requests concerning Montana state government to the Director(s) of the Department(s) from which you seek information. 

 Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely,

Bob Schleicher

Citizens’ Advocate

Office of Governor Brian Schweitzer

Well now, isn’t that useful?

Next, the Governor’s office argued that the $550,000 effort is a waste of money because it won’t produce anything useful in the near term.  That’s of course after the Governor’s office essentially killed the original version that would have produced something very useful in the near term by asking Transparency to pay the full freight of an IT upgrade (data warehouse) that every agency would benefit from.  Reminds me of the guy who killed his parents and then asked for leniency because he was an orphan.

And even if it won’t result in a portal until the 2011 biennium, isn’t that all the more reason to get going on it now?  If we wait for 2011 to do the leg work necessary to set it up then it won’t be online until 2013 or beyond.  How is that an improvement?

Here’s the deal.  There is only one voice in opposition to getting you easy access to public records and data: the Governor’s.  If you’re happy with the current state of government transparency that’s fine.  If you’re not happy and want to see how your money is being spent and what’s being done in your name then you know who to call.

As I’ve said before on this blog, SB 241 isn’t perfect in its current form but it at least moves towards and sets as a policy goal the measures MPI has been pushing for over the past year or so.  We’ll continue to track it and keep you informed on your government’s efforts to keep you informed…or not.

You may also see some of our more active efforts over the next several weeks as we try to increase public awareness and stir up a little unrest over the current lack of transparency in our state government and the potential to do so much better.  I hope you’ll help out by pointing your circles of friends to this site and get them to tell their elected representatives how important it is to know how our dollars are being spent and what’s being done in our names.

The only argument we’re hearing against a transparency web site is that it costs too much during these times of tight budgets.  With the millions and billions of dollars being spent on our budget and with federal stimulus funds it’s more important than ever for citizens to have the ability to track government spending.  Government is one of the only if not the only sector of the economy that’s growing, so setting aside whether that’s the right thing to do, should’t we at least be able to see where all that money is going?  What’s more important than that to a representative democracy?  We need to tell Helena that transparency isn’t a side issue, it’s a prerequisite.

Let’s face it, most people who live independent lives just want to be left alone to do our thing.  That’s worked before, but it won’t now.  It’s ironic almost to the level of absurdity, but you have to get involved to be left alone.  If we don’t take a stand now we’re going to see our freedoms taken away in massive chunks and in ways that we won’t be able to reverse.  Knowing where government dollars are going and how government is growing is the first step to drawing a line in the sand and, hopefully, reversing its advance.

Make a phone call, write an email, send a letter, talk to your friends.  Do it now or lose it forever.

There are a few House bills that address transparency in specific agencies.  Representative Bob Lake’s HB508 is probably the best example so far of one that’s moving through the system.  That bill would require the Department of Revenue to provide certain tax information on an RSS feed.  This is a good example of a bill that simply asks agencies to keep constituents informed using easily available and cheap technology.  Businesses do it all the time.  We should hold state agencies to the same standards.

The most comprehensive transparency bill – SB241 – made it out of the Senate Finance and Claims on March 20th but only after being severely watered down.  The bill started out as a premier piece of legislation that would have provided the most comprehensive government transparency (Google for Government) web site in the country.  Even after the administration effectively killed that version by putting a price tag on it that was over four times what the federal government spent and over ten times what most states have spent, the bill was still an advance over the current opaque state of government operations and would have provided a good amount of information and a solid basis for future improvements.

Unfortunately the current version doesn’t even meet that minimal standard.  It would simply call for a study to find out what might be done and provide recommendations for the 2011 legislature.  There’s wriggle room for some good work to be done, but without the requirement for any deliverable, i.e. searchable web site, it doesn’t provide any guarantee that taxpayers will have any better information about their government’s spending than they have now.  That’s unfortunate given all the efforts that have been made to date.

You’ll be hearing a lot more about transparency as MPI increases its efforts to let Montanans know what’s possible and what level of openness Montanans should expect from their government.  The technology is proven, the right to know is in our constitution, and the people deserve to see how their money is being spent and what’s being done in their names…especially as we tighten our household budgets while government budgets explode. 

The only way we’ll get meaningful transparency legislation in 2009 is if you demand it.  We’ll provide all the ammunition you need to argue for your right to know, but we can’t do it for you.  Call your elected representatives and ask them if they’ve got something to hide and, if not, why they’re not supporting common sense measures to bring more sunlight on government operations.

The bill is SB241.  It’s passed two hurdles so far.  First, it got out of committee with some major amendments that changed the “how” but not so much the “what” of the bill’s goals.  This is where most bills are killed – generally deservedly so – so that was a significant milestone.  And just this morning (21Feb) the bill passed its second reading on the Senate floor with a few minor technical amendments.  It is now going to the Senate Finance and Claims committee since it has an appropriation attached.  They can kill it, change it, or send it back to the floor for a third reading.  If it passes the third reading it will then be transmitted to the House and the process starts all over again.  The same process that keeps bad bills from sailing through slows down good ones, too.  It’s a fair trade.

So, what about SB241?  As originally written it would have been the most comprehensive “Google for Government” type transparency legislation in the country.  The Administration put a $4-6 million dollar fiscal note on it, though, so something had to give.  The bill’s primary sponsor – Sen Balyeat – subsequently amended the bill to give the legislative Fiscal Division primary responsibility for creating a transparency web site, as well as $275,000 per year over the next two years to make it happen.  There was also some watering down of requirements aimed at limiting initial costs and things like that, but even after all that it would presumably result in one of the better transparency sites in the country.

The site envisioned under SB241 would meet or exceed most of the measures of success that MPI has been advocating over the past year or so.  It would put detailed and reasonably timely revenue and expenditure information at the state level online in a user friendly, searchable web site.  There are tradeoffs.  The deeper into detail the database goes the more expensive it is.  The same goes for timeliness of information.  The bill creates an advisory board to sort through all those cost/benefit tradeoffs and, assuming the members all share the same goal of getting as much fiscal information to taxpayers in as timely a manner as possible, the board should be able to come up with a good product.

I guess all this is to say that nothing is perfect and few things are worthless.  SB241 isn’t perfect, but it’s also far from worthless.  The bill as it currently reads would achieve most of the goals MPI set out for government transparency and accountability and, most importantly, it’s provisions are achievable during this session.  There’s room for improvement but it’s also a huge step in the right direction from where we are now – with revenue and spending data technically available but in no way accessible to the general public.  We’ll continue to watch the bill and keep you updated.  And you need to do your part by letting your expectations be known to your elected officials.  Tell them you want to know where your money is going and what’s being done in your name.

Another thing the site does is demonstrate just how difficult it is to get financial information from state and local governments.  We spent over six months gathering and parsing through the data behind all the information from OPI and other state agencies.  But we completely struck out at the local level.  As the site details, nearly half of all districts didn’t even bother to respond to our data requests.  Of the just over half that responded, most said we could come to their offices and make copies or pay them to copy and mail the data – this even though we created a way for them to upload files with a few mouse clicks.  That response is well within the law, though, despite the fact that visiting or paying for copies from over 400 school districts is an unrealistic requirement.  Take a look at each district’s response (for those that responded at all) at the site.  Some of them are pretty enlightening about the contempt with which a few of our public servants hold the public they serve.

Finally, we created this site for under $25,000.  Compare that to the administration’s $4-6 million price tag for a state transparency site.  Yes, the site they priced would be a lot more sophisticated than www.SchoolsOpenMT.org, but a thousand times more sophisticated?  Probably not.

We’re working with administration officials to figure out why Montana’s transparency site would cost six million dollars when the feds did it for less than a million and a host of other states have done it for costs ranging from nothing, i.e. within existing resources, to hundreds of thousands of dollars.  And there’s the potential to save millions of dollars by opening up the books.  But you need to tell your elected officials (all of them, including the Governor’s office) that you want to see where your tax dollars are going and what’s being done in your name.

We’ve also got problems with our open government laws, as we described in a recent editorial that’s been seen around the state.  You can see it here: http://www.montanapolicy.org/main/page.php?page_id=17.

This will not happen without a groundswell of support demanding that Montana state government open its books.  Please go to the “What is…” tab and find your elected reps.  Tell them you’re watching.  This is too important to just let the opportunity fade away.