Q: If you folks at Montana Policy Institute think tracking state spending is such a great idea, why don’t you do it yourself? Why should state government have to go the extra mile to launch and maintain a transparency website?
A: It’s government’s job to make accountability simple and easy, not watchdog groups on the outside. It’s the people’s data, the government just creates and stores it. They should make spending information easily available rather than leave it to arcane accounting reports that you need a CPA, a dump truck and a load of ‘freedom of information’ requests to get the answer.
Hey, tracking our tax dollars shouldn’t take a trip to Helena and long hours trying to connect the dots under mounds of ink and paper.
Q: Is the state’s accounting system up to the job of putting records online?
A: Yes, for the following reasons:
- TIMELINESS: The state’s accounting system – SABHRS – provides a near real time source of financial information. Instead of relying on periodic data dumps that a privately run system would require, data available on the state-run SABHRS system is constantly updated and as reliable as the information that state agencies and lawmakers use to make their decisions and pay their bills. Quick, easy and
- ACCURACY: Data has to be formatted before being displayed. One misplaced comma can render an entire database useless until it’s found and fixed. If the state government is responsible for the display, they’ll probably be a lot more conscientious in maintaining the accuracy. That’s a win-win.
Q: Won’t a state-created transparency web site be expensive? Getting financial data from all those agencies and offices and creating a search engine to rifle through it must cost a fortune.
A: Here’s the good news. The federal government created a transparency website for less than a million dollars, after estimating it would cost nineteen million! Oklahoma estimated it would cost $300,000 and it wound up costing $8,000 plus some staff time. Kansas estimated $40 million and did it for nothing…that’s right, no fiscal impact and using existing state resources and program appropriations. Missouri and South Carolina did it within existing resources, as did Texas. The list goes on and on.
The bottom line is, while there’s no guarantee that building a search web site to make state spending available to taxpayers will be free, the overwhelming trend has been for opponents to vastly overstate its potential costs, and for actual costs to be overwhelmingly less than the estimates.
Q: What about privacy? Will aid program recipients, medical bills, and other protected information show up on the site just for the asking?
A: No. Privacy information is protected by a myriad of federal and state laws. The site will have filters built into it to ensure no protected data is available.
Q: How about salary and compensation information? Isn’t that private?
A: Compensation information is between an employee and an employer. If the people of Montana employ you, they should see what they’re paying you, whether through a contract or as an employee. A system that hides contracts and payments to individuals or businesses is fertile ground for political meddling by allowing sweetheart deals, paybacks, and backroom agreements to go on behind a veil of privacy.
Look, any time money can be spent in your name without your knowledge it can also be spent in ways that don’t benefit or even harm you for someone else’s gain.
Q: Can Montana really afford to lead the way on this? Maybe we should see how it works in other states first.
A: So far there have been actions to increase transparency in the federal government and over 20 states. These actions include:
- 5 Executive orders
- 6 Government websites have gone live
- 8 State Constitutional Officer-created websites
- 12 transparency bills passed
- 50+ transparency bills introduced
We’re not behind in Montana yet, but we’re certainly not leading the way. We could, though. All of the state and federal actions so far have been limited in some way. Montana could lead America by creating a comprehensive, regularly updated, and user friendly search site where taxpayers can go to see where their hard earned dollars are going and why.