County Launches “Financial Transparency” Website

Concern over county expenditures is nothing new. Thirty years ago a group called Sarasota Taxpayers Organized Protest (STOP, what else?) combed county records in the days before e-mail and websites. They did it the old-fashioned way, with pencil and paper. They raised issues, and some of them were even resolved.

Thanks to an addition to the Sarasota County website, you can start your own STOP group by combing county financial records on the internet. Everything you ever wanted to know (well almost, the site’s still under development) about where your taxes are going is available at the click of a mouse.

Glenn Zimmerman is the county’s Information Technology chief. And for the past several months, his staff worked to get this up and running. He previewed it for county commissioners on July 13, and it went live the following day.

“It will be updated every month on the 15^th with the previous month’s data,” said Zimmerman. “So far it has 1,619 pages with 50 item per page.”

Sound overwhelming? Maybe not. It’s searchable. “You want to look for Home Depot purchases? Or ? Or you can sort by P-card holder name, or by purchase order number,” he told county commissioners. In other words, you can drill-for-data.

While Zimmerman and his crew have tried to make the transactions financially transparent, the sheer volume is daunting, as the STOP group learned decades ago. If you think you can call up the site and 10 minutes later call the cops, think again.

But if you believe you are a forensic accountant, this could be the start of a fine career in public service. The raw data is there. And downloadable. “You can download to PDF [portable documents format], [Microsoft] Word or as an [Microsoft] Excel spreadsheet,” said Zimmerman.

His project won’t be finished until October. “Future phases include revenues, projects, a procurement status site to display all current and future solicitations more than $25,000. We should have that all up in September,” said Zimmerman.

All counties will be scrambling to emulate Sarasota. One of the bills passed last spring by the Florida Legislature – Senate Bill 224 – demands public access to this kind of information. Think of it as another ray of Government in the Sunshine. The long-gone members of STOP could only applaud.

The site is based on an endeavor by the City of Palm Bay on the east coast of Florida. “The new North Port city manager came from Palm Bay,” said Zimmerman, who noted the man was very helpful to Sarasota County’s IT department in getting the site up and going.

North Port seems to be playing an increasing role in Sarasota County financial affairs. North Port’s acting city manager is . Today Lewis will today decide the fate of Sarasota County Financial Planning Director .         

You can select the site by going to scogov.net, scrolling to the bottom and selecting the "financial transparency" button.