The Governor’s office just announced the launch of the Commonwealth’s e-transparency program called Open Door. The site is alleged to provide citizens access to all state expenditures and other vital information about state-funded programs.
“In today’s difficult economic times, it is even more important for government to be transparent and accountable, and for citizens to feel confident that their tax dollars are being used efficiently and responsibly,” said Gov. Steve Beshear. “I’m proud of our administration’s efforts, along with the bipartisan support of all of the state’s executive branch constitutional officers, to put our checkbooks online for public view in such a comprehensive and user-friendly manner.”
Some of the features of the site include (from a press release):
- Your Money: A section with dozens of helpful charts, graphs and descriptions that summarize state revenues, expenditures and budget priorities.
- Cabinet/Agency Search: A search engine that provides agency-by-agency data on state expenditures.
- Budget Basics: A tutorial that allows the average citizen to log on and find out basic information on state expenditures, revenues and how budgets are developed.
- Budgeting for Kids: A fully interactive children’s section that offers games, cartoons and interactive lessons on budgets and government finance.
- Vendor Income and Expense Watch (V.I.E.W.): A pioneering effort by Treasurer Todd Hollenbach that allows citizens to search all of the state’s vendor and contractor data.
- Links, links and more links: Providing taxpayers easy access to state audits, investments, tax incentives, election finances and more.
Through the site, you’re supposed to be able to access a list of features that are coming soon, along with their estimated arrival dates. So. Check it out and praise it or complain about it.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Steve Bittenbender // Jan 9, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Do we know when VIEW will have contract information for all cabinets?
2 AMAZED! // Jan 9, 2009 at 2:24 pm
The Public Service Commission has in and out of state travel expenses for about 35,000 dollars…that’s an agency with about 100 employees and that does NOT count the state car expenses for cars they have and that total is just for fiscal year 09 which isn’t even over until June of this year. Serious travel abuse here!!!
3 AMAZED Part 2 // Jan 9, 2009 at 2:41 pm
here’s the real kicker…
PSC in AND out of state travel approx 35,000.
Gov Office in AND out of state travel approx 52,000.
Commissioner of Agriculture’s IN state is 174,884.76 and out of state is 33,057.51.
Yes, that’s right. The grand total of $210,000 and that’s just June 08 – January 09 with 5 1/2 months still left in the 09 fiscal year. There should be some serious explaining here!!!! Significant waste, fraud and abuse and by who should be one of the questions…employee specific including Farmer!!!
4 TJ // Jan 9, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I’m not an eTransperancy expert… but the site is easy to use and informative. I like it. Kudos to Beshear for getting it done.
5 HaightAshbury // Jan 11, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Bet you’ll never see the ED Cabinet’s use of state dollars.
6 jake // Jan 11, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Or any other cabinet, for that matter.
7 Council Republicans announce e-transparency ordinance - FatLip // Jan 23, 2009 at 7:01 am
[...] view government expenditures. The idea is similar to the Commonwealth’s Open Door website, which launched earlier this month to help the public track how the state government is pending their tax dollars. Other [...]
Leave a Comment