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Florida Senate Bill 1796 (2009)
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The Florida Transparency Act 2009, formerly SB 1796, was originally introduced by Sen. J.D. Alexander on February 18, 2009. The bill was co-sponsored by Sens. Altman, Aronberg, Gaetz, Haridopolos, Oelrich, and Storms.[1]
On May 27, 2009, the bill was signed into law by Governor Charlie Crist. The law mandates the Governor’s office in Florida create a website and require each branch of government and government agency to disclose data, including disbursement data and budget amendments. The outcome of this act has been the Transparency Florida site.[2]
The Joint Legislative Auditing Committee has oversight over the implementation of the project.[3]
Transparency Florida
The website Transparency Florida gives the option of viewing the operating budget and amount spent by real numbers. There is also the option of viewing the operating budget by agency. The site also posts links to fiscal reports and analyses under its Reports and Other Budget Links section. The Site Information section provides information on contacting state agencies, a list of frequently asked questions, and more.[4]
Suggestions
A policy brief by the James Madison Institute notes that one of the strong parts of the transparency law is that its execution be overseen by the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee.[5] Because the Committee has broad oversight of the implementation of the law, the James Madison Institute recommends it use that discretion to promote greater transparency through measures such as the following:
- The Committee should use its broad oversight role to recommend the incorporation of expenditures beyond those in the General Appropriations Act.
- Contextual information should be provided along with the data. The Committee can demand this.
- The project should keep citizens in mind and, as such, provide data in usable formats, such as XML.
See also
External links
Footnotes
