Colorado Spending Transparency

COST learned that on Tuesday both houses of the Colorado General Assembly unanimously passed an amended version of HB 1288 the Colorado Transparency Act, the bill that proved to have “more lives than even the luckiest of felines.”  It is now headed to Governor Bill Ritter for his signature.

The amended version builds upon Governor Ritter’s Executive Ordercreating the Transparency Online Project.  The good news is that transparency is now in law and cannot be repealed or tweaked with changing administrations.  Also, the legislation – not the executive order — requires that the Web-based system be available for download in a structured data format, allow for users to provide feedback, include archived financial information and be updated at least every five days.

CAUTION: The amended version allows for the state to decide if financial information should be aggregated or not. Sources tell COST that Senator Paula Sandoval introduced an amendment that included the language from the Executive Order warning that more information may be hazardous to taxpayers:

Regardless of the form of the data in the Financial Data Warehouse, Where access to each individual transaction is likely to hinder, rather than foster, this goal, the system may provide access to aggregated information.

In other words, the state doesn’t want to overload us with silly expenditure and revenue details.  COST will take Transparency Project Director Amy Oliver’s advice and reserve judgment until we see the Web site, but we do hope that the state respects taxpayers and the spirit of HB 1288 and provide detailed financial information.

Bottom line is that we are thrilled with the progress of transparency in Colorado, and we will continue to promote open government.