The New York State Comptroller's Open Book New York is an excellent new resource introduced by New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
The site contains detailed revenue and expense information for cities, towns, villages, schools, and fire districts.
For instance, a search of local government data comparison for Jefferson County in the years 2005 and 2006 reveals the following;
Revenue increased approximately 3%, specifically federal aid decreased by approximately 7% while other revenue areas made up the difference including an increase in state aid.
On the expense side, expenditures went up by over 5%, but specifically the increases are in the areas of debt service 16%, employee benefits 10% and the largest increases were in public safety (Sheriff's Dept) 25% and education a.k.a. JCC which saw a 49% increase.
Browse any location and compare any number of years. Transparency in government is good government.
Click Here
"A government big enough to give you everything you want,
is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson
2 comments:
IV: "Transparency in government is good government."
I couldn't agree more.
One of the important contributions former Governor Spitzer left us last February was Executive Order 3, requiring NYS Agencies and Public Benefit Corporations to video and post their meetings on the Internet.
How many people, that live in a rural area, afford the time to attend a state, county or city meeting in person?
Here is an example.
St. Lawrence County is twice the size the State of Delaware, but has a little more than one hundred thousand people.
The City of Watertown has been a pioneer in this effort.
Not only does the City post their meetings on the Internet, they broadcast the meetings on Cable, too.
Have you noticed that the Mayor has enforced the Rules of Order for the Public Comments Segment.
This is a big improvement.
Why can't our Jefferson County Legislators provide the same multi-camera access to its citizens?
They would prefer to inform us by using this blog, earthbob.
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