By T.J.Pletzke
An excerpt from the Florida State Attorney Generals website states:… “Government must be accountable to the people. The Florida Constitution, which sets forth our rights as citizens of this great state, provides that the public has the right to know how government officials spend taxpayer dollars and make the decisions affecting their lives. The principle of open government is one that must guide everything done in government for its public.”
“In Florida, transparency is not up to the whim or grace of public officials. Instead, it is an enforceable right” -Pam Bondi, Attorney General
While Florida sunshine and Government in the Sunshine are synonymous, the Town of Longboat Key is setting a new standard in open government.
Last year, the town was recognized by Computerworld for their innovative Fire Pre-Plan and Logbook application – a cloud-based solution leveraging the ease and power of the iPad for the town’s fire department. This time, the town has provided a solution for an issue all local governments deal with every year – budgets and finances.
The idea: tackle a complicated problem with a simple approach. Displaying data by revenues and expenses in all applicable areas, the town’s IT team created a visual interface that is accessible, elegant, and reachable to anyone with internet access. Just a click away from the town’s homepage, “Fiscal Transparency” presents a dynamic graphic that takes information directly from the town’s financial system and displays the budget in simple pie charts and tables. Want to see exactly what your taxes pay for? Is the town is on target to collect budgeted revenues? How much revenue for ad-valorem taxes was budgeted versus how much tax revenue has been collected? What percentage of the total budget the town has already spent? Fiscal Transparency has the answer for all of these questions and more.
The web-based program allows anyone to toggle between revenues and expenditures for the General Fund, the Utilities Fund, the Building Fund, and all other funds. For citizens who like to take things a step further, the entire five-year history for all expenditures for every department is available for direct import to an Excel spreadsheet. Trending on expenditures is available in bar chart or spline chart format by individual or selected departments.
Providing a modern interface to the town’s legacy financial system is more than just a visual representation of normally incomprehensible data. Fiscal Transparency is a project designed to foster openness between Longboat Key’s government and the citizens it serves. As other cities like Miami struggle with federal investigations into their budget practices and the City of Detroit declares bankruptcy, Longboat Key has taken the initiative to keep its citizens informed and its government responsible through Fiscal Transparency.
The residents of Longboat Key have the power to inspect every detail of the budget, to understand it, and to voice their opinions on it. Thanks to Fiscal Transparency, local government may soon enter a new era of accountability.
For more information, visit the interactive application at www.longboatkey.org and click on the “Fiscal Transparency” button.
