Colorado Spending Transparency

Have you ever discovered something that makes you so mad and frustrated that you think maybe it would have been better had you never known in the first place?

That’s how we feel about all the government spending information that citizen activist Natalie Menten has compiled and made available on her website.  Check out her YourHub article for a quick tutorial.  Then go have some fun with the custom searches and let us know if you are as fed up with K-12 education saying that it is starving for cash.  Maybe if some of them stopped feeding their faces they would have more money for other things like — oh say textbooks.

As an example, using the term “party” under the custom search tool you will find that between January 2007 and August 2008 Jefferson County School District spent over $60,000 on parties — retirement parties, year end parties, training parties, “earth shall weep” parties, cookie dough parties, pool parties, bowling parties, picture exchange parties, staff parties, administration parties, oriental trading company training parties, staff graduation parties, student senate parties, pennies reward parties, butterbraid parties, class parties — you get the picture.

School has changed since we were in school. Our parties centered around real holidays, and every student was assigned something to bring.  Now taxpayers foot the bill.  Sometimes I just wish I didn’t know!

Don’t forget to send us your transparency stories at cost@i2i.org.  And remember: No taxation without information!

Check out the Sunday, December 21 Denver Post editorial.  The Post supports transparency saying “by allowing Colorado businesses to search this database of government contracts, interested vendors wil have a better chance at offering competitive bids, saving the state money.  By allowing any citizen to dig through an actual check registry to keep an eye on government spending, they’re likely to find more room for efficiency.”

The easiest way to achieve transparency in Colorado?  The Post suggests executive order from Governor Ritter.

The northern Colorado city of Greeley has a tradition of politically progressive policies.  The Union Colony was founded in 1870 on the principles of temperance and women’s rights, including the right to vote, long before either prohibition or women’s sufferage became federal law. 

Greeley is at it again.  The city began posting it’s check registry online — something the state of Colorado still doesn’t do.  Greeley joins Fort Collins and Weld County in support of taxpayer transparency.  The city updates the registry bi-monthly. 

Reviewing the December 10 check register, Greeley residents would know that the city paided Brigham Young University $2827.08 or that the Greeley Police Department got $186.49 for petty cash (that doesn’t seem like much for all those donuts).  The point is not that these aren’t legitimate purchases but rather that taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent. 

Big thanks to the city of Greeley (including Mayor Ed Clark and city manager Roy Otto) for trusting taxpayers to know how their money is being spent. 

Remember: No taxation without information!

In what has to be one of the most blalant abuses of power, the South Carolina Policy Council (a sister tink tank) found out it is expensive to get information that is a matter of public record.  According to a press release, ”South Carolina’s 85 public school districts responded to a Policy Council Freedom of Information Act request for public records on employee travel, catered meals and training services by demanding nearly half a million dollars in fees before making the data available.”

This is another reason why we need a searchable, online database for all government expenditures and contract.

Remember: No taxation without information!

A big thank you to Natalie Menten for being a relentless advocate for transparency.  Her website provides useful information about what to expect when requesting public records and information.  Especially what to expect in fees.  A concerned Englewood resident found out the hard way about the cost of an open records request.  Now he is at the mercy of Englewood bureaucrats. 

Remember: No taxation without information!

Below is the text of an op-ed Amy Oliver, II’s director of Colorado Transparency Project, penned about the cost of making government more open and transparent.   You can also find the op-ed online at the Denver Daily News and the Independence Institute.

Transparency doesn’t cost; it saves

By Amy Oliver

Two years ago freshman legislator Don Marostica introduced the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act. Believing everyone would embrace the simple concept that taxpayers have a right to know how and where their money is being spent, Representative Marostica thought his legislation to create an online, searchable database for all state revenues and expenditures – information that is already a matter of public record – would pass easily.

He was wrong. The bill died in committee. Forces bigger than Representative Marostica’s idea to bring transparency to Colorado ended up killing it.

The whopping $2 million fiscal note weighed down the legislation like concrete fins in the Cherry Creek Reservoir. Even when the state is awash in cash, that is a lot of taxpayer dollars just for a database. With the current economic situation, any legislation with that kind of fiscal note will be a tough sell this session.

However Representative Marostica and his legislation will be back this session. This time he is armed with co-sponsors, a coalition of citizens, and a cadre of states and organizations from both ends of the political spectrum supporting transparency.

 He also is armed with proof that transparency doesn’t cost; actually it saves – money for both government and taxpayers, time for both government and taxpayers and reputations.

Democrat Governor of Kansas Kathleen Sebelius signed that state’s Taxpayer Transparency Act as part of the Kansas state budget in 2007. She signed stand alone transparency legislation in April 2008. Opponents of the measure claimed the cost would be upwards of $40 million. According to Americans for Tax Reform, a taxpayer watchdog group, the actual cost was $0.

On the Kansas Web site titled Kansas KanView (http://www.kansas.gov/kanview/) taxpayers can search revenues and expenditures by vendor, program, fund or agency.

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt instituted transparency in his state via executive order. The Web site MAP/Missouri Accountability Portal (http://mapyourtaxes.mo.gov/MAP/Portal/Default.aspx) was created utilizing existing resources. Missouri taxpayers have access to revenues, expenditures, grants, contracts and state employees’ salaries.

With these Web sites, Missouri and Kansas residents don’t have to pay government agencies for labor and research time for public records on expenditures and contracts. Conversely, government employees don’t have to take time away from providing state services in order to comply with public records requests.

Also the internet sites promote efficiency and competitive bidding. With access to contracts, businesses can evaluate whether they can offer goods and services to the state at lower prices. And government agencies can evaluate multiple contracts from various vendors and search for volume discounts.

In Texas, the transparency Web site Where the Money Goes (http://www.window.state.tx.us/comptrol/expendlist/cashdrill.php) cost $300,000 to develop but has saved the state millions because according to Comptroller Susan Combs it revealed duplicated contracts that could be consolidated.

While it appears that the transparency Web site will be a useful tool for taxpayer watchdogs and activists, it also comes to government’s defense when expenditures are legitimate. When a few state expenditures in Missouri raised eyebrows, a quick review from the Office of Administration revealed them to be “legitimate Department of Corrections expenses for special-needs products for female inmates in Missouri’s prison system.”

Responding to the inquires, Governor Blunt boasted “this is exactly how we envisioned the MAP site working when we created it.” The state even provides a phone number for taxpayers to report questionable spending. A story that could have developed in to a public relations nightmare for the Department of Corrections quickly was silenced because of easy access to facts. With more than 12 million hits on the MAP Web site, it appears that Missourians enjoy their Governor’s vision of transparency.

The movement towards transparent government did not begin at the state level. It actually started at the federal level in 2006 thanks to then Senator Barack Obama who sponsored legislation to put the nation’s expenditures and contracts online in a searchable database USA Spending. (http://www.usaspending.gov/)

On June 3, 2008, speaking on the floor of the US Senate, Obama said, “Whether you believe Government ought to spend more or spend less or just spend differently, we all should be able to agree that Government spending should be transparent and that public information ought to be accessible to the public.”

President-elect Obama is correct. What he and a number of states have discovered is that open, transparent government doesn’t cost taxpayers, it saves.

Amy Oliver is the director of the Colorado Transparency Project for the Independence Institute. For more information visit Colorado Spending Transparency (COST) at http://transparency.i2i.org.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs issued a press release last week showing all the ways her office saved money thanks to her state’s transparency website Where the Money Goes. 

According to the press release:

In January 2007, Combs began posting Comptroller’s office expenditures online — down to the cost of pencils. The searchable database on the Comptroller’s award-winning Where the Money Goes Web site now includes detailed payment and spending information for all state agencies.

“Where the Money Goes provides transparency to taxpayers, and we discovered that our emphasis on transparency made our own operations more transparent to us,” Combs said. “We were able to better analyze where and how we were spending money within our agency and where and how we could save.”

Combs’ agency has saved $4.8 million and identified an additional $3.8 million in expected cost savings. Some examples of the cost savings at the Comptroller’s office include saving $73,000 by consolidating multiple contracts for toner cartridges and establishing separate post office boxes to receive different types of tax payments, thereby avoiding having to spend $328,000 to buy and maintain a new mail sorter. These savings allow the agency to strengthen core functions without requesting additional funding from the Legislature.

The key line there is “these savings allow the agency to strengthen core functions without requesting additional funding from the Legislature.”

While Texas moves at light speed towards more transparent government, Colorado still is stuck in the dark ages of no fiscal transparency.

As stated on the front page of COST, if you have any examples of denied CORA requests we want to hear about them so we can provide anecdotal evidence to support transparency in government.  Please email us at cost@i2i.org.  One poor Englewood resident did just that who forwarded to us an email exchange between him and the city of Englewood. Below is what happened.  Beginning on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 a resident of Englewood submitted an open records request.  What follows is an abuse of power.  We replaced the name of the citizen with Englewood resident and deleted the last name of the Englewood employee.

*Sent:* Tuesday, October 28, 2008 2:48 PM 
*To:* Lou
*Subject:* Appeal of October 8, 2008 hearing minutes 
 
Lou, I need a copy of the October 8, 2008 Appeals hearing minutes as > soon as possible per Open Records law. Thank you,

Englewood resident

Government Response:

From: Lou
> To:  Englewood resident
> Sent: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 4:28 pm 
> Subject: RE: Appeal of October 8, 2008 hearing minutes 
> 
> Englewood resident, 
> > You have an outstanding balance for a previous Open Records Request. > > Once we receive full payment for your previous Open Records Request, > $102.20, we will proceed with this new Open Records Request. > > Lou 

From:*  Englewood resident 

> *Sent:* Thursday, October 30, 2008 11:21 AM 
> *To:* Lou
> *Subject:* Re: Appeal of October 8, 2008 hearing minutes 
> 
> I’m sorry, Lou, but you missed the usual step of telling me how much > it would be, and me confirming the request. 
> Charging me a hundred dollars for “research” of printouts of our > building inspections and a couple of letters is abusive! As you know, > I decided against the request based on this abuse of costs, (whether > it was yours or someone else’s) and since I canceled the request you > retrieved the documents yourself at the window and I am not in > possession of the documents requested. I do not owe the City > anything. I do however need the Minute of the October 8 2008 Appeals > hearing by tomorrow. Thank you, Englewood resident. 

Several points:

First, the fact that a resident and taxpayer has to pay any money, let along more than $100, for information that is a matter of public record is insulting. 

Second, city employee Lou should not have the power to decide who gets public information and who doesn’t. 

Third, and this is for all CORA requests, make sure when you ask for public information you also include an estimate of any charges before you decide to go forward with the request.  Most government employees know this and will provide a breakdown of charges but it seems that Englewood didn’t get the memo on common courtesy towards taxpayers.

Remember:  No taxation without information!