Unhappy with the snail’s pace at implementing the governor’s executive order mandating a public website where citizens can see the government’s checkbook and where every dollar of their taxes is being spent, the following letter was faxed to the governor’s office this afternoon…
Dear Governor Gibbons:
We applaud your Executive Order to make the state budget more transparent by creating an Internet site which will allow citizens to review state financial records. Making this information available to the public, the media and taxpayer watchdog groups will provide a great tool for assuring government accountability.
The Executive Order instructs the Department of Administration to “seek the cooperation and collaboration of the Nevada Controller” in order to put the government’s checkbook online “as soon as practicable.” The cost is estimated at $350,000. We urge you to immediately re-allocate $350,000 from the Department of Information Technology’s $67 million budget to get the website going.
State Controller Kim Wallin is responsible for administering the state accounting system and is an advocate for the transparency website. Indeed, the state’s checkbook is already posted on an internal computer system which is available to certain government employees. So all Ms. Wallin needs to do is transfer the existing internal database to an external public website. She estimates it would take 90-120 days to have the website up once she receives the money.
There is no reason for Nevada taxpayers to have to wait through another election to see how their tax dollars are being spent. Therefore, we the undersigned urge you to re-allocate the money for Ms. Wallin and let the sun shine in before Nevada citizens head to the polls in November.
Sincerely,
Randi Thompson
Ron Longtin
Jim and Patricia Clark
Jane Maxfield
Connie Fent
Sam and Sheila Ward
Paul Jackson
Glen Dawson
Bruce Specter
Don Nelson
Joe Enge
Eric Smith
Bryan Bedera
Michael Nance
Chuck Muth
Posted on May 23rd, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
Leave a Reply