Oregon lags behind 19 other states, but can easily catch up
OSPIRG released a new report today highlighting the benefits and need for an open and transparent state budget. The report, Transparency.gov 2.0, compares Oregon’s efforts to put taxpayer spending online with 19 “best practices” states. The report found that Oregon lags behind other states, but has the ability to quickly catch up with minimal cost.
A growing number of states – 19 by the most recent count - have come to define “Transparency 2.0” – are using powerful Internet search technology to make budget transparency more accessible than ever before.
The report found:
The public wants transparency. Three-quarters of voters (76%) – with almost equal marks from Republicans, independents and Democrats - believe that “creating a national website where citizens can see what companies and government agencies are getting the funds, for what purposes, and the number and quality of jobs being created or saved” would have an important impact on the impact of the Federal stimulus package, including 39% who believe its impact would be extremely important. Support for state transparency websites to monitor recovery funds received almost equally high marks.
Transparency 2.0 is inexpensive to set up, saves money and bolsters citizen confidence. The Missouri Accountability Portal received more than six million hits less than a year after its launch. The federal transparency website, which allows citizens to search over $2 trillion in federal yearly spending, cost less than $1 million to create. Missouri, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Nebraska all created their transparency portals with existing staff and appropriations. The Texas Comptroller reports $2.3 million in savings from more efficient government administration following the launch of their transparency website.
Transparency 2.0 = comprehensive, one-stop, one-click searchable. At least 19 other states and Federal Government have developed best practices that Oregon should quickly replicate.
- Comprehensive –Leading states provide comprehensive information on all expenditures large and small; include broad range of expenditures, including contracts and subsidies with private parties; and update the information frequently.
- One-Stop – Leading states offer one central website where citizens can search all government expenditures.
- One-Click Searchable –Leading states allow citizens both to browse broad, common-sense categories of government spending and to make directed keyword and field searches.
Oregon can become a leader of the Transparency 2.0 movement. Among the most important ways for Oregon to get ahead of the curve:
- Consolidate all disclosure programs into an OregonSpending.gov site. Oregon currently has a patchwork of disclosure programs that are typically buried within various agency websites. The federal government site – www.USASpending.gov can be a model for Oregon.
- Expand Oregon’s contracts disclosure. Oregon currently discloses partial information about contracts issues by some state agencies. We should disclose all contracts issued by all state and local agencies and include performance information about contractors.
- Report company-specific subsidies. Millions of dollars of tax dollars are spent through tax breaks and other economic incentive programs. Currently, none of that is tracked – leaving the public in the dark about how huge sums of taxpayer dollars are used.
- Link all the information together and make it searchable. The public should be able to search quickly for the information they want rather than burrowing through dense reports. Data should be linked together so the public can spot trends – such as the amount of campaign contributions made by individuals and companies who also receive contracts and economic development subsidies from taxpayers.
A number of promising measures have been introduced in the 2009 Oregon Legislative Session that would help move Oregon into the forefront of the transparency movement:
- HB 2037 (Riley) would improve the current online reporting of agency contracting (ORPIN) by requiring all state and local agencies who do over $50,000 in public contracting each year to report information on all contracts over $5,000 to the Department of Administrative Services (DAS). DAS would post all information online, potentially into a searchable database. Reports would include information about contracts solicited, contracts awarded, performance standards set, and performance standards met. Information would be searchable by contract, and also aggregated by agency and statewide.
- HB 2500 (Smith, Thatcher, Roblan, Whisnant) would put many of the current elements of the Tax Expenditure Report into a searchable database, consolidate relevant agency audits (now housed at the Secretary of State’s website) with agency spending reports and make the TER more comprehensive, allowing users to examine spending not only by tax program, but also by agency, contract, revenue source, and other categories.
- HB 2933 (Shields) would require annual disclosure of how state-appropriated economic development subsides were used. The bill would require the report to include every individual or entity that either received an economic development subsidy or claimed an economic development tax break of some sort, as well as aggregated information by all state-funded economic development entities. The bill would also require anyone receiving an economic development subsidy to report annually on the impact of the subsidy, including number of jobs created, actual wages, and other benchmarks, and provisions for companies to return tax funds if benchmarks are not met.
“Representatives Riley, Smith, Thatcher, Roblan, Whisnant and Shields should be commended for their leadership in bringing our tax dollars into the sunshine,” said OSPIRG Executive Director Dave Rosenfeld.
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OSPIRG-GovTransReport-1.2.pdf