City Launches Full Financial Transparency

Ever wanted to know what the city does with your money? This week the finance office made it possible to peer even deeper into expenses and revenues with your computer at home. 

“We’ve never had this level of detail on line items on the web before,” said Dolly Gamble, the city’s accounting and payroll manager. “This gets to the guts of it.”

For now, it’s not easy to get there because it’s buried behind several layers. Gamble promises the system will be streamlined as part of an overhaul of the city’s website. But once you are in, “the guts” are there. 

Gamble walked us throught the process. First you access the city’s regular web page, sarasotagov.com

From there, on the bottom of the page in the middle is “City Departments & Info.” Below that title is a pull-down menu of major departments and their sub-departments. Scroll down to “Financial Administration Department,” and underneath that is the sub-department called “Accounting.” 

Select “accounting.” A new screen appears. At the bottom of the third paragraph, at the end of the last sentence are the words “Monthly Financial Reports page.” Click on that. You're in.

For more than two years, the finance department posted the same monthly financial summary it gave to city commissioners and the administration. That’s been available for years. But to the right are two new columns – Revenue Line Item Reports, and Expenditure Line Item Reports. These reports are “the guts.”

While the revenue reports are just as important as expenses, most citizens will want to zero in on expenditure side. Click on the month. Since it’s just started, all we have is July 2011. What you’ll see is a table of contents allowing you to click on any department of interest. City manager’s office, skateboard park, police department, take your pick. All the city’s financies are open for your examination.

For example, the city manager’s office paid $25,696 in wages and salaries in July, and to date in the fiscal year has paid $281,971. It spent nothing on office supplies in July, and $883 for the year. 

Maybe the Bobby Jones Golf Course is of interest. It spent a total of $181,226 in July, including $1,807 for advertising. 

The truly curious might want to know where the $1,807 went. Fliers, radio ads, billboards? For now a citizen will have to travel to Gamble’s office in City Hall to find out that level of detail. But she plans in the future to also put up the purchase orders and invoices so that information would be available on the web as well. 

“Any question on any expense, they can ask for invoices in my office,” said Gamble. “But in the future I hope to have invoices available on the web. That’s our plan. We want to have everything on the table.”

Citizen concern about government spending is not new. Thirty years ago a group called Sarasota Taxpayers Organized Protest examined exactly these same kind of records – on paper in small government conference rooms – looking for waste, fraud and abuse. Today’s citizens can do so from the comfort of their homes. 

“Wouldn’t it be nice to see where the city is spending its money?” said Gamble. “Well now you can, and it’s going to get better.”