The Follow the Money 2012 report has this week revealed the good news that more US states are being open about their public spending by publishing their transactions on their websites. It has also exposed the states of Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Montana and Wyoming that are keeping their finances behind a password protected wall or are just not publishing at all.
A network of US Public Interest Research Groups (US PIRGs) which produced the report, revealed that 46 states now “allow residents to access checkbook-level information about government expenditures online”.
The checkbook means a digital copy of who receives state money, how much, and for what purpose. Perhaps to make sense of this ‘checkbook’ concept it’s useful to compare US and UK public finance transparency.
In the UK councils have been publishing lists of their spending over £500 for just over a year. This is mostly monthly, mostly in spreadsheets, and the data can be anything from a list of suppliers and amount paid on a particular date to much more detailed accounts of spending.
The government site Direct Gov provides a service to look up your local council’s spending data. Websites like Openly Local and Open Spending gather and are making sense of the UK council spending collectively.
There are sticky difficulties interpreting the data though: it’s often not clear if it is payment in advance and repayments will be made at a future date and it’s often not clear what a payment is for. We detailed these problems in this datablog post shortly after the first wave of local council transparency. This is not to diminish the potential of this data.
This is just the UK way.
In the US the best states are producing a checkbook tool which gives users the ability to monitor state spending in almost real-time because the data is updated nightly.
But more than that the checkbook allows users to see the exact amounts paid to the vendor, without mixing in contracts that are in the form of pre-purchase orders or term contracts.
The Follow the Money 2012 report found Texas and Kentucky to be leading examples of states who are accountable to their citizens. Kentucky lost some points in the grading as checkbook-level spending information is not downloadable, but aggregate expenditure by department or type of goods or service was.
The value of good transparency is illustrated by some nice examples in the report.
when Minnesota began to require agencies to submit reports on the performance of subsidized projects, the reports revealed that numerous projects were receiving assistance from two or more funding sources—that is, Minnesota tax-payers were sometimes double- and triple- paying for the creation of the same jobs. After the centralized publication of those reports, the double-dipping stopped.
Here’s the key data from the report with links to all the states’ websites. Let us know what you think to the ranking and what you’d like to see in the UK.
Data summary
Follow the Money 2012 grading system
Click heading to sort
Source: U.S. PIRG
Alabama
State Comptroller’s Office, Dept. of Finance
C
74
Alaska
Division of Finance, Dept. of Administration
D-
47
Arizona
General Accounting Office, Department of Administration
A-
92
Arkansas
Department of Finance and Administration
F
28
California
Governor’s Office
D+
62
Colorado
Office of the State Controller, Department of Personnel and Administration
C
70
Connecticut
Department of Administrative Services
F
39
Delaware
Cooperation of Office of Management and Budget, Department of Finance, and the Government Information Center
D+
61
Florida
Department of Financial Services
D
59
Georgia
Department of Audits and Accounts
C
74
Hawaii
State Procurement Office, Department of Accounting and General Services
C
72
Idaho
Division of Purchasing, Department of Administration
F
6
Illinois
Department of Central Management Services
C
73
Indiana
State Auditor’s Office
A-
93
Iowa
Department of Administrative Services, Procurement Services Division
F
32
Kansas
Department of Administration
C
73
Kentucky
Governor’s Office: E-Transparency Task Force, a multi-agency effort led by officials of the Finance and Administration Cabinet
A
96
Louisiana
Division of Administration
A-
92
Maine
Department of Administrative and Financial Services, Division of Purchases
F
0
Maryland
Department of Budget and Management
C
71
Massachusetts
Executive Office for Administration and Finance
website then click “Massachusetts Transparency” link
B+
87
Michigan
Office of Financial Management, State Budget Office, Department of Technology, Management and Budget
C
70
Minnesota
Minnesota Management and Budget
C
73
Mississippi
Department of Finance and Administration
C
70
Missouri
Office of Administration
C+
76
Montana
Department of Administration, General Services Division, State Procurement Bureau
F
16
Nebraska
State Treasurer’s Office
C
71
Nevada
Budget and Planning Division, Department of Administration
C
74
New Hampshire
Department of Administrative Services and the Department of Information Technology
F
7
New Jersey
Governor’s Office
C+
78
New Mexico
Cooperation of the General Services Department, the Department of Finance and Administration, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Information Technology
D+
61
New York
Office of the State Comptroller
C
73
North Carolina
Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) with substantial help from the Department of Administration (DOA), the Office of the State Controller (OSC), and the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS)
B
85
North Dakota
Office of Management and Budget, State Procurement Office
F
6
Ohio
Treasurer of State
B-
82
Oklahoma
Office of State Finance
C-
66
Oregon
Department of Administrative Services
B-
82
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Treasury Department
C+
78
Rhode Island
State Controller’s Office, Office of Accounts and Controls, Department of Administration
C-
66
South Carolina
Comptroller General’s Office
D+
61
South Dakota
Bureau of Finance and Management
D+
63
Tennessee
Department of Finance and Administration
D-
49
Texas
Comptroller of Public Accounts’ Office
A
96
Utah
Division of Finance, Department of Administrative Services
C
70
Vermont
Department of Finance and Management
D
55
Virginia
Auditor of Public Accounts
C+
77
Washington
Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program and the Office of Financial Management
F
22
West Virginia
Department of Administration, Purchasing Division
F
28
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Government Accountability Board
D+
61
Wyoming
Department of Adminstration and Information
D-
50
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