Oct
7
Open Books 2.0?
Filed Under Uncategorized
In the world of technology, three years is a long time. When the state legislature gets down to business next year, it will be three years since the Taxpayer Transparency Act authored by Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso) was written and passed. That bill created the Open Books website which allows taxpayers to see how dollars are being spent.
It was a landmark piece of transparency legislation that has since been copied by other states. In fact some states have gone beyond Oklahoma’s example: Alaska posts its check register every month, Missouri allows taxpayers to see every travel reimbursement given to state workers and Texas includes purchasing codes to give a better idea of what the money was used for.
It’s time for Oklahoma to again take the lead in transparency by creating Open Books 2.0, a new version of the website that provides unprecedented detail about how state dollars are spent. Taxpayers deserve to have a searchable database of state spending available in real time, a centralized reporting system that streamlines the process and details on all expenditures, no matter how small.
This sounds like it might be difficult, but the truth is that the federal government is already requiring a higher level of transparency for the stimulus dollars than Oklahoma currently has for the rest of the state budget. So the centralized reporting system is already being created and there will be great detail for stimulus fund expenditures greater than $25,000. It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to expand that system to include all state spending.
Think about it, under the current system, Oklahoma taxpayers will know more about the estimated $2.6-billion in stimulus funds that will come to Oklahoma over the next two years than the roughly $13-billion or so in state dollars that will be spent over that same period. Why should Oklahoma have two separate transparency systems?
OFRG has called on lawmakers to fix this inequity. Behind the scenes, we’ve already heard rumblings of support at the State Capitol which is an encouraging sign. Computer programs are always being improved to make them more user-friendly or add features. Taxpayers should expect nothing less from Open Books.
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[...] shouldn’t come as a big surprise as OFRG has been calling for an upgrade to Open Books 2.0 for several months now. The biggest problems with Oklahoma’s transparency website, [...]