Several bills making their way through the Colorado legislature look to usher in a new era of transparency in Colorado.  The Public School Financial Transparency Act passed the Senate with overwhelming bi-partisan support and now faces a hearing in the House Education Committee.  Senator Morgan Carroll’s legislation looks to bring more accountability to special districts. 

Now Coloradans can participate in the passage of the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, which will be heard in the House Finance Committee this Wednesday, March 4 upon adjournment — probably around 9:15 a.m.  Representative BJ Nikkel’s bi-partisan legislation will put into statute a free, searchable, online data base for expenditures and revenues in Colorado.

Hopefully NIkkel will find support from Colorado’s Executive branch.  Governor Bill Ritter embraced transparency in his State of the State speech.  Treasurer Cary Kennedy said on Amy Oliver’s (Amy is also the Director of the Colorado Transparency Project) radio show last Wednesday that Kennedy supports transparency efforts and thanked the Independence Institute for its work on transparency.  Furthermore, Kennedy said that by the end of the year Coloradans will be able to search state expenditures by agency and vendor. Previously, Kennedy had been hesitant to commit to a specific time frame.  The end of the year in line with Nikkel’s legislation.

Transparency is an idea that is long overdue in Colorado.  Nineteen states already have some kind of online spending transparency.  Costs have ranged anywhere from nothing to $300,000. 

Representative Don Marostica introduced legislation in Colorado in 2007 and planned to do so again this year until Governor Ritter’s State of the State speech.  However, NIkkel and her 37 co-sponsors recognize what Marostica overlooked.  Eight of the nineteen states with financial transparency Web sites are backed up with legislation.  While Ritter seems to support transparency, the next adminstration may not and if it is not in state statute then a simple swipe of a pen could reverse the transparency trend.   COST also doesn’t want transparency to be at the whim of an unelected bureaucrat.