In tough economic times, families work hard at their dining room table counting and budgeting every penny. While I believe you know where every dollar you spend is, do you think the state can account for all the money in their budget? Between 2009 – 2011, the budget for the state of Oregon was $55 billion. It was the largest budget in Oregon history. In January, Oregonians passed tax revenue measures to save schools and essential services. How can Oregon continue to spend more money, but get less?

When it comes to state spending, Oregonians have an information problem. In January, voters voted on the best available information, but it was at best incomplete. The state said it couldn’t fully fund schools without Measures 66 and 67. So, the Yes Campaign took that message to the voters. Voters could easily see that schools were being cut. It was logical that Oregonians that they had to vote to save schools. The budget is simply too big and too complicated for the average Oregonian.

For the last 20 years, Oregon has increased spending, but reduced services to Oregonians. In order to hold our government accountable, Oregonians need more transparency. Oregonians need better information. Better information would allow Oregon voters to use the same skills that balance their personal budgets at the dinning room table on state finances. Oregon needs to put its financial information on-line with an Application Programming Interface (API). An API would allow organizations to write programs that access state financial information. Media and political organizations would have financial information available to share with Oregonians. It is the technology that would allow us to account for all $55 billion.

Since 2010, Oregon has a website called http://www.oregon.gov/transparency/. It contains good background information on the budget process and revenue sources. It also contains a list of expenditures from the 2009 fiscal year. The expenditure list is several Excel file with tens of thousands of entries, and no description for the expenditure line. Until you’ve read the expenditure list, you will never have wondered what “Travel for Personal Development” is. For Oregonians without Excel skills and lots of time on their hands, it means you can’t find anything.

I looked at the expenditures for the Departments of Human Services and Education, and listed a few statements below. Some of the expenditures could make sense, and some of them don’t. I admit I am being a little nit-picky, but my point is that I would rather cut back on travel expenses and membership fees before we cut back on school days.

Department of Human Services:

• Advertising Budget: $1 million
• In-State Travel Budget for employees: $10 million
• Magazine Subscriptions: $300k
• Professional development for employees: $2.6 million

Department of Education:

• Membership Fees to Out of State Associations: $300k
• Travel: $500k
• Professional Development: $157k
• Salus University in Pennsylvania: $35k
• YWCA of Seattle-King County: $45k

The expenditure list shows that only 50 cents out of every dollar actually goes to an university, community college, or K-12 education. As a voter, I would like to know where the other money is.

The state government needs to take a leadership role in transparency. Better information translates to better government. When it comes to getting educated about voting, we should “have an app for that”.

More importantly, an on-line budget would change how we budget in Oregon. Currently if you talk about cutting state spending, the press will asks what department to cut. An on-line budget will give people a chance to cut specific parts of specific budgets. Instead of worrying about cutting teachers, our policy makers could cut items like travel expenses.

Controlling the growth rate of the state budget is one of many challenges that Oregon faces. Oregon’s budget has to grow between 9 – 12 % a year just to pay for the same services as the previous budget. Since the budget grows faster than even a robust economy, the State consumes more and more of wealth in our economy. Currently, 33% of the economy is controlled by state and local governments. If we can’t control spending, then Oregonians won’t be able to improve their financial situation even in a good economy because the state is consuming so much wealth.

The way to fight our out of control budget is to provide all of the budget and expenditure information on-line to both the media and voters. On-line applications, charts, and graphs will draw the public into budgetary discussions. It gives the public information so they can ask more questions, and challenge their leaders. We don’t need to hide the size of the budget, and the level of services it provides. Oregon is better off if it is governed in the daylight.