Face The State Staff Report
Before Gov. Bill Ritter delivered his State of the State speech Thursday morning, Face The State reported he would throw his support behind a Republican plan to put the state's checkbook online. Hours later, it's clear he plans to bring Democrats on board with the idea first proposed by two Republican lawmakers.
In his speech, Ritter announced that he is working with state Treasurer Cary Kennedy, a Democrat, and Rep. Don Marostica, a Loveland Republican, to make government more transparent by putting Colorado's revenue and expenses online. Colorado’s annual budget is already on the Internet, but specific line item expenses are not as readily available. The state issues millions of warrants, which are essentially checks written by the state, every year. While these are public record, they are not yet online. Fifteen other states, including Kansas, Missouri and Texas, have an online, searchable database for all the state’s revenue and spending.
Ritter received rare praise for his support of the project from the Independence Institute, a Golden-based free market think tank. The organization's president, Jon Caldara, expressed his appreciation in a news release saying, "Thank you, Governor Ritter. Transparency shows respect for Colorado taxpayers."
According to Kennedy, the first step is to put the state’s warrants online. "The Internet just makes it so easy," she said, adding there are a handful of programs, including child support enforcement, that require confidentiality and those warrants will be partially redacted.
Marostica said building the initial technology to put state spending online will cost about $12,000, but the price of maintaining the system will be minimal. After posting the warrants, Marostica said those involved are going to work on getting all state contracts up, with a long term goal of having a searchable version of the state budget.
“Putting the budget online will be different because there is too much to put it all,” Marostica said, adding that legislative staff is working on ways to publish a “simplified” version. While Kennedy was hesitant to commit to a timeline, Marostica said the process could take three years.
When Marostica, who ran on a transparency platform, was new to the state House in 2007 he introduced a bill that would have established a similar online database for the state. While the bill never made it out of the committee, Marostica did not give up. Along with Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, Marostica planned to reintroduce the idea this session. As a result of Ritter’s announcement, Marostica and Kopp have pulled their bill, with Marostica jokingly adding that he is keeping the language on hand “just in case."