Colorado Spending Transparency

Joe Biden said the Obama stimulus is all about a three letter word: J-O-B-S. 

Colorado’s share of the stimulus money, $819,313,005 spent thus far, has created 5232 jobs according to Governor Ritter’s report The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: What it means for Colorado.  A closer look reveals that 2862 were temporary summer youth jobs.  Another 632 are part-time, mostly for AmeriCorps.  Some 30 plus of the full-time jobs are with the census and food stamp administration.  The balance, 1685, are with CDOT. 

Do the math, the cost for a full-time government stimulus job in Colorado: $471,411.40. 

And it’s going to get more expensive.  The Governor’s report claims another $544,565,460 in federal stimulus dollars will be coming into Colorado over the next three months.  That should lead to another 623 jobs.  Cost per job: $874,101.86.

COST wonders if that includes benefits — health insurance, retirement?

Let’s face it; we can put a man on the moon, bring down the evil empire, and cure diseases, but we cannot track $787 billion of taxpayer money.   

Denver Post reporter Miles Moffeit reports that “despite federal lawmakers’ pledge of transparency, the final stages of most money trails, along with key information about job impacts, will remain invisible to users of the Recovery.org website when it debuts next month.”

Things we won’t see on the federal Web site:

• Payments to grassroots-level recipients and their identities, such as subcontractors, the subcontractors’ own vendors and individuals.

For example, the U.S. Justice Department sent a criminal-justice grant to the state of Colorado, which in turn awarded $75,662 to the city of Denver, which in turn will contract with a nonprofit called Project PAVE to carry out the work. Under existing rules, only the payment passing to the state and to Denver, along with the identity of Project PAVE, must be reported.

The sum paid to Project PAVE and subsequent dollars passed along to other vendors or employees, along with their identities, will not be posted.

• Stimulus expenditures under $25,000.

If the state Department of Transportation were to award $24,999 to an engineer to help oversee a project, the identity of the engineer as well as the specific sum do not have to be publicly reported.

• Costs borne by nonfederal agencies in administering stimulus dollars.

Gov. Bill Ritter’s controversial $40,000 payment to his former law firm to help advise the state’s stimulus-oversight board does not have to be posted on the website because the Recovery Act doesn’t require reporting of administration costs. Those expenses include consultant fees, according to the governor’s office.

• Details about jobs generated and preserved, including performance data.

Agencies must use a formula to calculate “full-time equivalents” created, but school officials, for example, would not be required to detail whether those are teachers’ jobs. The public also won’t be able to determine from the website whether those FTEs bring insurance benefits.

Taxpayers can find some Colorado specific information on the state’s recovery Web site.  But if concerned taxpayers are looking for detailed expenditure information, they will be disappointed.  Most of the information is aggregated.

Jefferson County Administrator Jim Moore is a bureaucrat on a seemingly impossible mission.  He wants to re-establish trust between Jefferson County residents and their government. How? By being as open and transparent as possible.  According to a blog post from Moore:

Complete and accurate information is the best antidote to the spin and sometimes deliberate misinformation that has become far too commonplace in our world today. The most powerful force in a representative democracy is a well-informed and engaged citizenry. That’s what Transparent Jeffco is all about.

Jefferson County’s recently launched transparency initiative Transparent Jeffco is about “open government” and changing the way Jeffco residents “interact” with “county government.”  This summer the county put online, in a searchable format all 600 plus procurement cards.  Want to know how much the county spent at Bed, Bath and Beyond?  It’s there as well as a description of the purchase or credit.  Contracts and check registry are coming soon.  

Moore believes that transparency is more than just financial.  Jeffco residents and Web site visitors are encouraged to provide feedback.  Contact information is everywhere.  The Jeffco Blog is available for comments.  And now the county offers video streaming with an integrated agenda for commissioners’ meetings.  

Colorado Transparency Project Director Amy Oliver Cooke interviewed Moore for a podcast on iVoices.org.  Moore reveals the specifics about how he and his staff, including Public Information Director Kathryn Heider, reached out to residents and employees about what they would like see; how they got two departments to coordinate efforts; how they overcame the fear of transparency; biggest obstacles and his goals for the future.

Transparency can be achieved when it’s a priority.  Jeffco proves it.

Up next for Moore and his staff? Priority based budgeting.  COST wishes every county in Colorado had a Jim Moore.

Transparent Jeffco quick facts: developed in-house; cost $3400; launched summer 2009; updated every two weeks or as bank statements come into the county; still waiting to track unique visitors; feedback ability; contracts and checkbook coming soon.

Governor Bill Ritter and Treasurer Cary Kennedy quietly launched the Transparency Online Project(TOPS).  COST doesn’t believe that TOPS is what State Rep BJ Nikkel and transparency activists envisioned with HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act.  According to a press release from the Governor’s office: 

TOP sets a new standard for accountability, responsibility and transparency in state government, Gov. Ritter said. Taxpayers now have a convenient and modern tool to see exactly where their money is going and how it’s being spent.

If TOPS is the “new standard” then Ritter and Kennedy set the bar fairly low.  Problem is taxpayers can’t see ”exactly where their money is going” because the Web site doesn’t provide details.  Under “Expenditure Type Search” visitors find that the “drill down path” provides a summary for each agency, department and fund.   In some cases a name is attached to aggregated spending, particularly in the case of travel expenses, but no context is provided. 

No wonder the Governor fought so hard against transparency, he doesn’t really seem to understand it.  To help the Governor, COST has taken the liberty of providing a few examples on the local and state level: Transparent Jeffco, Open Book Fort Collins, Missouri Accountability Portal (MAP) and KanView. It can be done!

COST believes now is a good time to remind taxpayers of our motto:  No taxation without information!