State revenue flow requires transparency

• Published October 02, 2008

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State lawmakers are fond of talking about openness and transparency in government, but generally come up short when it comes to taking positive legislative action.

This year was an exception when the House and Senate passed Senate Bill 6818, which requires the state to make available to the public detailed information about state spending. State officials have until Jan. 1, 2009, to assemble line-by-line state spending data and make it available to the public via a Web site.

It's a great step forward to a more open and transparent government. Now it's time for lawmakers to shift their focus to the revenue side and give the public the same kind of detailed information about the taxes they pay to support government programs.

Budget transparency

The budget transparency law, which Gov. Chris Gregoire signed April 1, says "The intent of the Legislature ... is to make state revenue and expenditure data as open, transparent and publicly accessible as possible. Increasing the ease of public access to state budget data — particularly where the data are currently available from disparate internal government sources but are difficult for the public to collect and efficiently aggregate — significantly contributes to governmental accountability, public participation, agency efficiency and open government."

Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, was supportive of the legislation when it passed unanimously.

"One of the most important changes we can make to achieve truth in budgeting is to bring more transparency to the budget process. The passage of SB 6818 is a giant step in bringing visibility to the very complex operations of state government," Alexander said. "The Legislative and Evaluation Committee is the perfect Web site to shine some sunshine on Washington state's revenues and expenditures."

That Web site must contain fiscal year information on state expenditures by fund or account; expenditures by agency, program and subprogram; state revenues by source; state expenditures by budget object and state agency workloads, caseloads and performance measurements.