Colorado Spending Transparency

Apparently the state provides $500 lunches and taxpayers don’t need to know about them according to State Controller David McDermott.

The Denver Post reports that State Rep. BJ Nikkel, sponsor of the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, accuses McDermott of violating the spirit of the law, violating taxpayer trust and violating transparency.

It’s easy to see Rep Nikkel’s point when McDermott is the information gatekeeper and drops gems like this: “‘We really don’t need people to search for the $500 (lunch). We need them to know what’s really happening with their government.’”

The point of transparency is that it is not up to McDermott to decide how much information taxpayers need.  It is up to taxpayers, and they want detailed financial information.

McDermott also cites an old computer system as to why he can’t provide detailed information.  Seems funny that a state like Colorado on the cutting edge of green technology can’t compete with dozens of other states that show their taxpayers how their money is spent.

“Why does Governor Ritter have to be dragged kicking and screaming into transparency?” asked our big boss Jon Caldara.

Investigative reporter Todd Shepherd exposed Ritter’s latest battle against transparency.  Shepherd discovered that Ritter and his administration have virtually ignored a Governor Bill Owens executive order requiring that “all cabinet members as well as senior staff members submit a conflicts of interest report before the end of January every year.”

According to Shepherd’s report, his CORA request netted only three pages of responsive reports all from Agriculture Secretary John Stulp.  In other words, the rest of the Governor’s cabinet and senior staff members ignored a standing executive order to disclose annually any and all conflicts of interest.

Evan Dreyer, the Governor’s spokesman, blamed taxpayers.  The Denver Post paraphrased Dreyer, “Ritter came into office as the voter-approved gift ban known as Amendment 41 took effect, and the additional ethics rules caused confusion in the new administration.”

This is more than just “confusion.” These disclosures are about good governance and transparency.  The state’s chief executive officer must air on the side of transparency, but as COST has documented the Governor is no friend to transparency. 

Ritter actively tried to kill State Rep BJ Nikkel’s Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, which sought to provide detailed expenditure and revenue information online in a searchable format.  When that failed, Ritter issued an incredibly “weak”  and “pointless” executive order to provide aggregated financial information.

A watered down version of Rep Nikkel’s bill did pass, but left the details up to the Governor and State Controller David McDermott.  Unfortunately for taxpayers, the state’s new transparency Web site TOP certainly violates the spirit of detailed financial transparency that so many Coloradans wanted. 

Even though Ritter is no fan of transparency, he must abide by an executive order because it has the force of law behind it. For the last three years, Ritter and his administration have been in violation of the law.  

How did Ritter respond to this ethical laspe?  First, he thanked Jon Caldara and the Independence Institute on the Mike Rosen Show; Then, as the Denver Post reported, Ritter rescinded the previous executive order and issued a new one — making it all better.

COST has another suggestion.  Ritter might want to have a sit down with his spokesman Evan Dryer.  The Westword was right.  Caldara and good governance do not like to be ignored.  Maybe then Ritter wouldn’t have be dragged kicking and screaming into transparency.

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!

According to Face the State, Governor Bill Ritter today plans to sign HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, which creates a state expenditure and revenue database, in private.  Or will he?  Sources tell COST that the Governor still is struggling with this legislation – apparently not enough to veto it.  Despite his embrace of transpareny in his annual state-of-the-state speech, bill sponsor Rep. BJ Nikkel says the Governor tried to kill this overwhelmingly bi-partisan legislation.  It seems the Governor’s office doesn’t know his schedule today because it can’t tell Rep. Nikkel when the signing will be — keeping her and the public in the dark.  This isn’t the first time politics has come into play in a bill signing.

COST learned that Governor Bill Ritter is not very transparent when it comes to bill signing.  Colorado Transparency Project Director Amy Oliver called State Representative BJ Nikkel to find out when the Governor would sign HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act.  Amy reported this morning on her blog:

The legislator [BJ Nikkel] known among her colleague as “Miss Transparency” has no idea.  Not that she hasn’t asked.  The Governor’s office won’t tell her.  So much for transparency from the Executive Branch.  They even keep bill signings secret.

He could not sign it in which case it becomes law anyway, or he could veto it.  Either way, his office isn’t telling.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Governor Ritter didn’t invite Rep. Nikkel to the transparency party.  Despite Nikkel’s reputation as the champion of transparency, Ritter didn’t think to invite her to his press conference unveiling his “pointless” and “weak” executive order.  Maybe he thought she would say no.

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.

Transparency in Colorado has more lives than even the luckiest of felines. Powerful anti-transparency forces never wanted this bill to see the light of day.  In a pleasantly surprising turn of events, HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act passed through the House Appropriations Committee this morning, April 15, unamended. The vote was 12-1 vote.  Representative Joel Judd was the lone no vote. 

As late as last night, sources told COST that two legislators were going to introduce amendments in today’s Appropriations Committee meeting to gut HB 1288 and make it more like the Governor’s “pointless” executive order.  House Sponsor BJ Nikkel was prepared to fight for transparency on behalf of Colorado taxpayers.  Fortunately there was no battle.  As Rep Nikkel said, “this may have been one fight they [anti-transparency forces] didn’t want to have.”  At least not today.

The bill was introduced to the full House shortly after it cleared Appropriations.  It passed second reading.  Rep Nikkel believes third reading will be either Thursday or Friday.

COST will keep everyone updated on its progress.  Remember: No taxation without information!

Free from guile, candid, open.  Easily seen through or detected.  Those are words that the online free dictionary uses to describe a state of being transparent.

“Almost, governor, almost.”  That’s how the Denver Post describes Governor Bill Ritter’s attempt at financial transparency for the state’s expenditures and revenues. 

Upon closer review of the Governor’s executive order, the Post discovered the same thing COST and others have said, ”it doesn’t appear to be as far-reaching and useful as a similar proposal already in the state legislature.”  The Post was referring to HB 1288, Representative BJ Nikkel’s Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act.

Furthermore, the Post acknowledges that Ritter’s “move threatens to usurp an open-government bill already moving through the legislature.”  And Rep Nikkel said that Ritter was trying to kill her bill.

The Postargues that if Governor Ritter believes in open, transparent government then he should work with Rep Nikkel to bring real transparency to Colorado finances. “In the end, the real winners ought to be taxpayers who will be able to see for themselves how their money is being handled.”

The real question is how much Ritter is committed to his rhetoric.

As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” Or in the case of Governor Ritter’s transparency executive order, “the devil is no detail.”

According to a Denver Post article, this new era of transparency includes “descriptions of revenues and expenditures” and “aggregated state credit-card expenditures instead of line-by-line statements.”

A friend of COST described Ritter’s executive order as a husband telling his wife, “honey I’ll be faithful, I just can’t tell you what I’m doing.”

The timing of the Executive Order is somewhat suspect as well. According to State Representative BJ Nikkel, sponsor of the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, Governor Ritter is trying to kill her bill because HB 1288 provides much more detailed information that taxpayers want and the Governor and State Controller David McDermott do not.  

The bill was supposed to be heard in the House Appropriations Committee today (Friday, April 3).   If it passed, that would have been a major hurdle and much harder kill later.  Make no mistake, this bill was supposed to be dead by now.  As COST reported earlier, the hearing has been delayed.

COST has learned that due to Governor Ritter’s executive order on transparency that the House Appropriations Committee has delayed hearing HB 1288, Rep. BJ Nikkel’s bi-partisan transparency legislation.  It was scheduled for Friday, April 3 but now will be heard sometime next week.  When COST gets details we will pass them along.

HB 1288 would put transparency into statute and provide much greater detail than what Governor Ritter proposes. States have been successful implementing transparency via statute, think Texas.  Some have done so with both an executive order and legislation. Now that we have seen Governor Ritter’s, Colorado could benefit from having transparency in statute.