It’s your money, says State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, you have the right to know where it’s being spent. Lembo has launched a new financial research portal Open Connecticut that follows the comings and goings of taxpayer dollars through “transparency” categories. There’s even a Follow The Money page to track compensation and benefits of state employees as well as pension payments of retirees and vendor contract spending. Can you imagine finding this type of information on the city’s website?
This stuff is right up the financial alley of city fiscal watchdog John Marshall Lee who scours city financial data from a variety of sources because info is not available from a central portal.
The Open Connecticut site also includes municipal information about grand lists of taxable property, state formula aid to municipalities, mil rates, real estate sales and town revaluation dates such as the Bridgeport reval that will likely be put off by the legislature for another two years.
Lembo has an independent streak that makes the political and government establishment uncomfortable. In the early years of Dan Malloy’s administration, the governor’s bean counters had rosier outlooks than Comptroller Lembo’s deficit projections. They reported this and Lembo reported that. Some in the governor’s office were shouting prehistoric noises at Lembo’s sobering financial numbers. Now, at least, both sides are reporting surpluses.
Can you imagine, an elected official who lets you know where the moolah is being spent? Such nerve! From Lembo:
We all pay taxes–but few of us actually research where tax dollars come from and where they go.
Historically, pockets of state financial information have been available–but scattered across agencies. Through Open Connecticut, we want to centralize that information and make it easier for you to follow.
What exactly is in the state budget? Where did our deficits or surpluses come from? How much did we spend on a particular vendor or program? And what should we expect in future years?
It’s your money. You have a right to know.
Sounds promising to me, but the pleasure will be in seeing whether the information is a part of OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE and TRANSPARENT process and governance. If this true and the process is regular, then a vital part of real “check and balance” practices will be made available to the taxpayers as an interested public. Patient pressure, questioning, finding answers, connecting the learning, sharing with other taxpayers, asking for assistance in this quest … that is what Budget Oversight Bridgeport has been up to for almost four years, thank you for your help and encouragement. Time will tell.
This is great, now how soon can Bridgeport and other cities join in for their own residents?
Ron,
I think the point of this is residents can use this right now. Between my first posting and now I went on the State site to look at some of the info that is available. I am particularly interested in how the Net Grand List is calculated based on residences, commercial, industrial, motor vehicle and personal property, and the State listing provides more info (including Utility and Apartment valuations) than we can see in our CAFR.
Equally important is to confirm the graph that occurs on Page 87 of the CAFR 2013 (our external audit) is accurate, or in accord with the State Controller-provided results. And there are variances in some categories that are at issue. For instance many of the 2010-11 CAFR reported results are at variance as well as Miscellaneous Land statistics since 2010-11. Footnotes might explain the columns or the variances I find, but there are no useful footnotes. What is meant by Vacant Land valued at $75-79 Million from 2007-08 through 2010-11 in contrast to current CAFR-City entries in excess of $100 Million.
And the real number that concerns taxpayers is the Total Net Grand List. Kevin Lembo is showing a number lower than $7 Billion in the CAFR 2013 for the last two reported years while the CFO for Bridgeport shows values greater than $7 Billion.
These are not minor differences. They may be explained easily. But when many numbers are accurate to the penny and others are not, I ask questions and will continue to do so. It seems to me some if not much of the data is reported by the City to the State in one fashion or another. So why are the entries different?
In Bridgeport the CAFR does not break out the statistics for Exempt Real Estate while the State shows $33,281,000 was exempt from their total Net Real Property of $5,932,721,000. If this is accurate it may quiet the concern regarding the not-for-profits that pay no property tax. (It is likely the Colleges and Hospitals in Bridgeport are included in another category in the State report.)
When you hear the Grand List has increased in the City you want to ask: Was it new residences, commercial enterprises, with taxable personal property, motor vehicles, apartments, industrial or utility investments? Those values increase the Grand List by staying on the Net Grand List.
Buildings that burn down or are torn down leave the list. It is possible for the Assessor’s Office to say the Grand List is increasing in a given year (because St. Vincent’s or University of Bridgeport has construction) or certain vacant land owned by the City has been revalued. But these do not assist current taxpayers who look to economic development to increase the Total Net Grand List. Listen for the “NET” when the City talks! Time will tell.
Good God–let’s get Lembo to Bridgeport!
Yo, Lembo. Can we get us some of that up in here?
*** This type of financial transparency could never happen in a city like Bpt. Too many hands in and out of the cookie jar for the wrong things leaving taxpayers to foot the bills, no? ***