EDITORIAL: New online site lets Arizonans track state money: Our view

Feb 23, 2010 — The Arizona Daily Star

Feb. 23, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin, a Republican who is running for governor, has launched a new service on the Internet, a Web site that tracks how the state government is spending money.

AZcheckbook.com is a free service and a first step toward more transparency on the state's revenues, spending and more. Martin worked on it for more than two years and says he is continuing to refine it.

For instance, you can view the average cash balance on hand to pay for the state's day-to-day operations. On Friday, not surprisingly, but somewhat alarmingly, it was minus $500 million.

"This is what we've been staring at for the last three years," Martin said. He pointed out that the state's actual red ink is even worse because the state's general fund is $1.1 billion in the red. The total that would be needed to bring the state's bank account to zero would be $1.5 billion or more, he said.

"In terms of cash flow, the state is literally upside down," he said. He manages to "keep the lights on" with lines of credit and cash-flow loans from other state funds.

We spent some time prowling around the new Web site. It offers a look at every state agency's spending- but it's a macro look that may raise questions that the site doesn't answer.

For instance, we reviewed the Arizona Historical Society's budget and wondered about code 6800, "Aid to organizations and individuals," which is budgeted at $40,313. What aid? To whom?

"You have to go to the agency and ask them to fill in that information," Martin said. "All the money that comes in or goes out from the state has to have a code, but we don't have vendor-level data in the Treasurer's Office."

Along with looking at operating funds and agency expenditures, you can look up revenues coming in to the state.

Some trends are obvious.

"If you look at the average monthly operating balance year over year, you get real-time window into the accuracy of the forecasts that the governor and the Legislature are using," Martin said. "If they're right on, then the balances stay pretty flat. Ours (the state's) have been going down for almost three years."

Martin said the Web site is still a work in progress.

"We want to do a little bit more with how-to on the site. The information is really raw -- it's interesting and it's a lot of data -- but if you don't know how to read it" it may not be especially helpful, he said.

We checked out the Web sites operated by some other states, and were especially impressed with Texas' "Where the money goes" site.

You can search by vendor or by state agency. You can look up expenditures by funding source. You can look at the purchasing orders issued by the largest state agencies. It's a lot of fun and much more detailed than Arizona's site.

Still, Martin has taken a good first step.

As he says, "once you put something like this up, it's going to be hard for anyone to take it down."

Arizona Daily Star

Online

Arizona's site: www.azcheckbook.com

Texas' site: www.window.state.tx.us/ comptrol/expendlist/ cashdrill.php

Newstex ID: KRTB-0014-42282993