the official blog of the evergreen freedom foundation

State budget transparency goes hand-in-hand with authentic, honest government. Millions of our tax dollars are spent every day, but how can we know where this money is going? As taxpayers, we need clarity.

 

Experts from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) have promoted budget transparency for years, particularly through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the largest bi-partisan organization of state legislators in the country. This year, ALEC voted to adopt our model legislation to create transparent state budgets.

 

Here at home, the concept has gained widespread support. The Washington Policy Center, the Washington Coalition for Open Government, State Auditor Brian Sonntag, Attorney General Rob McKenna and many state lawmakers share this common goal. We look forward to working with them to open government’s expenditure ledgers wherever tax dollars are spent.

 

Washington state legislators got the ball rolling this year when they passed SB 6818, a bill putting part of the state budget online and making it accessible to taxpayers who foot the bills. Lawmakers charged our state’s Office of Financial Management (OFM) and Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program Committee (LEAP Committee) with the job of creating a searchable database to comply with the law.

 

Today several of us met with OFM staff to talk about criteria for a new website. To summarize our suggestions, we want the database to be comprehensive, easily accessible, user-friendly and linked to data that really matters. OFM gave us a tour of the new state performance website, which will be linked to our state’s spending website

 

Here at EFF, we will continue talking with officials in other states that are already implementing searchable state budget databases, like Kansas, Virginia and Texas. We need to learn from them about what works well and what doesn’t. And you can count on us to continue working side-by-side with OFM and others who want to make our website the most accessible and informative in the country.