R.I. receives C+ for spending transparency

RHODE ISLAND RECEIVED a grade of C+ regarding its online spending transparency, according to the Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. / COURTESY
RHODE ISLAND RECEIVED a grade of C+ regarding its online spending transparency, according to the Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. / COURTESY

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island received a grade of C+, and an overall score of 76 out of 100, regarding its online spending transparency, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and its affiliate RIPIRG Education Fund, which released “Following the Money 2015: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data” on Wednesday.
The score was an improvement over last year’s grade, which was a D+.
For the sixth year in a row, PIRG evaluated each state on how well it provides spending information online and assigns them with “A” to “F” letter grades.
Rhode Island landed in the “middling” category for online spending transparency, a category for states “with generally comprehensive and easy-to-access checkbook-level spending information but more limited information on subsidies or other off-budget expenditures.”
“This year, most states have continued to make their budgets more open to the public, allowing users to better scrutinize how the government uses their tax dollars,” said Phineas Baxandall, with the RIPIRG Education Fund. “Rhode Island has improved, but still has a long way to go.”
Officials from 47 states provided the researchers with feedback on their initial evaluation of state transparency websites. Rhode Island was one of only three states that failed to respond to the researchers with any feedback, but that did not stop them from evaluating how the state provided information online, Baxandall said.

“Transparency in state spending increases accountability, reduces corruption, and promotes greater effectiveness and fiscal responsibility,” the group stated in its report.

It said transparency websites offer spending information that is broad and detailed and helps residents answer three key questions: how much the government spends on particular goods and services, which companies receive public funds for these goods and services, and what results are achieved by specific expenditures.

Rhode Island’s website provides some “checkbook-level” services well, such as searching for contracts and expenditures by recipient, keyword and agency. But it scored a zero for transparency regarding quasi-public agencies.
Baxandall said Rhode Island is also one of the most improved states, thanks to several key steps the state Office of Digital Excellence, which oversees the state’s transparency website, www.transparency.ri.gov, has taken to incorporate new features.
Last year, Baxandall said Rhode Island did not provide checkbook-level details about economic development program spending. This year, however, such spending is available for users on the site. The next step for Rhode Island would be to include projected and actual public benefits for these subsidies. For other states, such disclosures have allowed people to better analyze how effective these programs are toward achieving key policy goals, he said.

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States with the most comprehensive transparency websites were Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oregon, Louisiana, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Montana, New York, Texas and South Dakota, according to the report.

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