Evaluation of Indiana state website, 2009-2012

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IN.gov is the website for the state of Indiana. In Sept. 2010, the state auditor launched a transparency portal, the Indiana Transparency Portal (ITP). The state added state agency performance reviews and more local government spending information in the first quarter of 2011. It has promised side-by-side comparison of budgeted numbers and actual expenditures during the second quarter of 2011.

Website evaluation

C
Budget P Usability P Legislative P Executive P Ethics Audits P Contracts Lobbying P Public records P Compensation P Transparency grading process

In 2011 Indiana earned a Sunny Awards for having a perfect website transparency score.

• See also: Evaluation of state websites

This website was reviewed on an unknown date.

The good

• Budget
  • Budgets and the governor’s proposed budgets are archived for at least 3 years.
  • Check register available with reports regarding tax expenditures.
  • Revenues and expenditures are shown graphically.
  • Annual and quarterly reports are posted.
• Audits
  • Information about regular audits is available.
  • Audit results posted online.
  • Performance audits are posted online.
• Legislative Public Officials
  • Contact information, including e-mail form, is available for all elected officials.
  • Party affiliation is disclosed.
  • Committee appointments are online.
  • Roll call votes are online.
  • Conflict of interests forms are online.
  • Salaries are disclosed for elected officials.
• Executive Public Officials
  • Cabinet members are listed.
  • There is a state employee directory search that provides phone numbers and some email addresses.
  • Salaries are disclosed.
• Compensation
  • Employee salaries are provided.
• Ethics
  • Must have an ethics commission and guidelines for ethical behavior of officials.
  • Process for reporting ethics violation is available online.
  • Results of ethics investigations are posted online.
• Contracts
  • Rules governing contracts will be posted online.
  • Bids and contracts for purchases over $10,000 will be posted online.
  • Complete statements for awarded contracts will be disclosed.
• Public Records
  • At least 24 hours is given notice online before a public meeting is held.
• Lobbying
  • Database of registered lobbyists.
  • Lobbying database will specify lobbyist, company, client, agency being lobbied, purpose of lobbying.
• Usability
  • Site is consistent in use of web domains.
  • Internal search function is useful.
  • Information is presented in a clear and concise manner, with website written in “plain english” instead of legal jargon.
  • Budgets are downloadable as PDFs.
  • All PDFs, financial data, and legislation are searchable or can be presented in a drilldown database format.

The bad

• Budget
  • No evidence that all appropriations bills will posted online as least one week before being voted on.
  • No evidence that the proposed budget will be posted seven days prior to being voted on.
• Legislative Public Officials
  • Personalized emails are not provided.
  • Terms of office and date of next election are not posted online.
  • Pension benefits are not disclosed.
• Executive Public Officials
  • Agency heads do not always have personalized email addresses provided.
  • Pension benefits are not disclosed.
• Audits
  • Schedule for audits is not posted online.
• Public Records
  • Executive sessions and appropriation meetings should be broadcast online and archived.
  • Information regarding public information violations and how to pursue them should be posted online.
  • Contact information, including e-mails, for the Public Information Officer for every state agency and department should be in a central location.
  • Citizens should be able to request public records online, either by e-mail or an online submission form.
  • Annual compliance surveys that measure the number of FOIA requests submitted, number fulfilled, average time for compliance, and reasons for denials are not posted online.
• Lobbying
  • Does not disclose state-paid lobbying activity.
  • Agency lobbying contracts are not posted online.
  • Executive and Legislative lobbying is not recorded.
  • All grants given to nonprofit organizations should be posted online. The reason for the grant should also be disclosed, along with the contact for organization responsible for oversight.
• Compensation
  • Benefit information is not disclosed.
• Usability
  • Could not find a single meetings page.

U.S. PIRG rating

The U.S. PIRG rated the state website an "A-" on providing online access to government spending data, with a score of 93 out of 100.

The scorecard that U.S. PIRG uses has 13 items and focuses on a separate state website that is searchable at the checkbook level. Sunshine Review, on the other hand, focuses on the availability of separate spending-related items; they do not need to be in a central database.

Item	Possible points	Notes
Checkbook-level website	30	Detailed expenditure information, including individual payments made to vendors.
Search by vendor	8	Ability to search checkbook-level expenditures by contractor or vendor name.
Search by keyword of activity	8	Ability to search checkbook-level expenditures by type of service or item purchased, category, or government fund.
Search by agency or departments	8	Ability to search checkbook-level expenditures by branch of government.
Contract or summary information	10	A copy of the contract or detailed summary information is included for the expenditures.
Historical expenditures	5	Checkbook-level expenditure data from previous fiscal years.
Grants and economic development incentives information	10	Awardee-specific grants and/or economic development incentives are included in the checkbook tool or elsewhere with specific award amounts.
Downloadable	3	Information can be downloaded for data analysis.
Tax expenditure reports	10	The state's tax expenditure report is linked on the website.
Off-budget agencies	2	Expenditures from quasi-public agencies are included on the website.
City and county budgets	2	Financial information for some local governments is accessible.
ARRA Funding	2	A link is provided to the state's website that tracks funding related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Feedback	2	Website users are capable and encouraged to give feedback about the site.

There are several similarities between the checklists. For both checklists, the searchability of information factors in to how usability is rated. Both checklists have an item relating to contracts, tax information, and the budget. The U.S. PIRG requires information for quasi public entities; Sunshine Review requires information on lobbying, which includes quasi public entities' lobbying activity.

Unlike the Sunshine Review checklist with each check worth one point, different items on the U.S. PIRG checklist merit more or fewer points, depending on the item.

State Integrity Investigation

The 2012 State Integrity Investigation graded state ethics laws according to an "Integrity Index." The index was created by researching 330 "Integrity Indicators" across 14 categories of state government. The report assigned grades based on what laws are on the books, and whether or not they were effectively enforced. The report was a project of The Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International.

Indiana received an overall grade of C-, or 70%. It ranked 22 out of the 50 states.

Category	Grade
Public Access to Information	F
Political Financing	F
Executive Accountability	C-
Legislative Accountability	D-
Judicial Accountability	C-
State Budget Processes	B
State Civil Service Management	C-
Procurement	B+
Internal Auditing	B+
Lobbying Disclosure	B-
State Pension Fund Management	A
Ethics Enforcement Agencies	F
State Insurance Commissions	C-
Redistricting	F

Transparency Legislation

• See also: Indiana transparency legislation

2011

• The House voted 87-0 to mandate transparency in deals involving cities and casinos.

Resources

Resource	Run by	Includes	Year	URL
Access Indiana	State	Audit of all state agencies	2011	http://www.in.gov/sboa/resources/reports/audit/
Invest Indiana	State	Tracks federal stimulus funds	2010	http://www.in.gov/gov/INvest.htm (dead link)
Indiana Transparency Portal	State	Expenditures, budget info, revenue, employees, contracts, stimulus, debt overview, performance, and local government	2011	http://www.in.gov/itp/
Indy Star	Indy Star	Employee Salaries	2009-2010	http://www.indystar.com/data/government/statepay.shtml
Follow the Money	National Institute on Money in Politics	Campaign contributions	2010	http://www.followthemoney.org/database/state_overview.phtml?y=2010&s=IN

Salaries

• See also: Indiana state government salary

State and Local Employees

According to 2008 Census data, the state of Indiana and local governments in the state employed a total of 423,601 people. Of those employees, 310,202 were full-time employees receiving a net pay of $1,112,585,809 per month and 113,399 were part-time employees paid $106,724,434 per month. More than 59% of those employees, or 251,485 employees, were in education or higher education.

As of July 2010, the Indiana state government employed its smallest workforce since 1982. Special committee approval must approve any new hires.

State employees' salaries were frozen in 2009 and through 2010.

State Employee Benefits

The state of Indiana provides its eligible employees with many benefits. All active full-time employees and elected or appointed officials are eligible to participate. For the purpose of benefits eligibility, full-time employees are defined as active employees whose regular work schedule is at least 37 ½ hours per week. Part-time, intermittent and hourly (temporary) employees are not eligible for insurance or related benefits.

Insurance

Health For health insurance, employees may select from two different Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHP), an HMO and a traditional PPO. Under the CDHPshe employer biweekly contribution ranges from $128.34 for a single individual to $441.54 for a family. Under the PPO and the HMO, the state contributes biweekly $181.26 per individual and $505.02 per family.

Dental and Vision Insurance are offered to employees at very small premiums. The premium for dental insurance for single coverage is $1.02 biweekly and family coverage costs $2.68 biweekly. For vision insurance the bi-weekly premium is 17 cents and family coverage is $2.52.

Life The rate for the basic life insurance offered by the state is $0.1165 per $1,000 of salary to $0.0515 per $1,000 of salary. Employees also have the option of selecting supplemental and dependent life insurance.

Health Savings Accounts The Health Savings Account (HSA) program has two parts: a Consumer Driven Health Plan (CDHP) and an HSA. A companion of the CDHPs, HSAs will once again be pre-funded by the state, with half of the state’s contribution deposited into the participating employee’s accounts. A prerequisite for that contribution is that the participating employees must open an HSA account with Tower Bank. For HSA1 single coverage, the state initially contributes $687.96 and then contributes $26.46 biweekly, whereas the initial contribution for family coverage is $1,375.14, with bi-weekly contributions of $52.89. Those with CDHP/HSA2, single coverage, the state front loads the employee’s account with $413.40, with bi-weekly contributions of $15.90. Family coverage starts with $825.24, followed by $31.74 in bi-weekly contributions by the state.

Flexible Spending Account Flexible Spending Accounts provide the opportunity to set aside pre-tax dollars from each paycheck for reimbursement of qualified medical and/or dependent care expenses. The FSA become limited use if the employee is participating in CDHP/HSA.

Paid Days Off

Holidays Employees of the State of Illinois receive the following 12 paid vacation days::

• New Years Day
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Good Friday
• Primary Election Day
• Memorial Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Columbus Day
• General Election Day
• Veteran’s Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Lincoln's Birthday (observed day after Thanksgiving)
• Washington's Birthday (observed day before Christmas is observed)
• Christmas Day

Pensions

• See also: Indiana public pensions

A recent study by economists Joshua Rauh of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business concluded that the Indiana pension fund will run out of money in 2020. Should the pension fund run out of money then, the cost the following year would be $3.6 billion, which would be 17% of state revenue.

Funding Levels

The state's pension liabilities can be calculated in a variety of ways, which yield different numbers. Below are the numbers as calculated by to the Pew Center on the States, the American Enterprise Institute and Professors Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago and Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University, Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

In Thousands

PEW	AEI	Kellogg (2009)
$9,825,830	$33,756,655	$30,200,000

Other information from the Pew Center on the States Feb. 2010 publication "The Trillion Dollar Gap":

State Pension Funding Levels 2008 (figures are in thousands)

Latest liability	Latest unfunded liability	Annual required contribution	Latest actual contribution
$35,640,073	$9,825,830	$1,232,347	$1,275,191

State Retiree Healthcare and Other Non-Pension Benefits Funding 2008 (figures are in thousands)

Latest liability	Latest unfunded liability	Annual required contribution	Latest actual contribution
$442,268	$442,268	$45,963	$10,218

Underfunded pension liabilities

Number of pension plans	Pension assets ($bn)	Stated liabilities ($bn)	Funding status (% of tax revenue)
2	$15.5	$36.4	-335%

This data is based on projected data from 2008 census data. In 2008, $1.94 trillion was set aside for pensions, but it is estimated that states have $5.17 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Rate of Return

Indiana presumes a 7.50% return rate on its pension investments.

Contribution Rates

As of July 1, 2010, the TRF employer contribution rate rose from 7% to 7.5%.

Eligiblity

A TRS member may become eligible for normal (unreduced) retirement:

• at age 65 with at least 10 years of creditable service
• at age 60 with at least 15 years of creditable service
• at age 55 if age and creditable service total at least 85 (This scenario is referred to as the "Rule of 85")

Public Records

The Indiana Access to Public Records Act is a series of laws designed to guarantee that the public has access to public records of government bodies at all levels in Indiana.

The Indiana Open Door Law legislates the methods by which public meetings are conducted.

To learn more about how to make a public records request in this state, please see: Indiana FOIA procedures.

External links

 

• In.gov
• Indiana General Assembly
• Attorney General
• Contact the Governor

• Indiana on State Budget Solutions