Dear Friend,
We've taken transparency to a whole new level!
Comptroller John Liu's www.checkbooknyc.com offers unprecedented access into how the City of New York spends its nearly $70 billion annual budget.
While it's catapulted the Big Apple to top in the nation in governmental financial transparency, that was never the end goal. The real goal is to simply compel more judicious spending of precious taxdollars.
The idea here is that opening up government's books and baring it all online empowers and enlists the public to keep an eye out. Then, when city agencies know that every penny spent is being watched, there is an inherent incentive to exercise that much more care in the spending of the public's dime.
See below for recent news reports, and take a look for yourself!
AM-NY: "Comptroller launches budget transparency online database" - 1/23/2013
EXCERPT - Being able to peek at the city's ledger, got a whole lot easier. City Comptroller John Liu launched an improved version of the "Checkbook NYC" online database Wednesday, which lists all of the expenditures for more than 100 city agencies.
The new website, checkbooknyc.com, includes an easier-to-use interface, historical information and apps that monitor spending, contracts and payroll costs.
"With out-of control cost overruns and a growing public sense that tax dollars are not funding real priorities, this application could not have come sooner," Liu said in a statement.
NEW YORK TIMES: "New Site Makes It Easier to View City Spending" - 1/22/2013
EXCERPT - The site, www.CheckbookNYC.com, will allow users to identify cost overruns and delays in contracts, and to flag the biggest recipients of overtime pay, to name a few important features.
Several budget experts said that if the site had existed earlier, major cost overruns — including those in the scandal-tarred CityTime project, the cost of which ballooned to $700 million from $73 million — might have been detected more easily.
"If this scrutiny curtails even one-tenth of 1 percent of agency spending, taxpayers could save upwards of $70 million annually," said the city comptroller, John C. Liu.
NY1: "Comptroller Liu Unveils City Spending Website" - 1/23/2013
EXCERPT - City Comptroller John Liu's office plans to unveil a new website today that will make it easier to view, analyze and download information about city spending, and to help fiscal watchdogs and the City Council battles the mayor over the budget.
FOREST HILLS TIMES: "Comptroller Liu releases Checkbook 2.0" - 1/29/2013
EXCERPT - City Comptroller John Liu unveiled version 2.0 of the Checkbook NYC website this week. Originally created in 2010, Checkbook NYC was meant to open up the city finances to the general public.
The original website received a rating of 98 out of a possible 100 from the United States Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) study, Transparency in City Spending: Rating the Availability of Online Government Data in America's Largest Cities.