THE OPERATIVE WORD IS "TRANSPARENCY"

State governments contract for goods and services amounting to tens of billions of dollars, and offer subsidies to encourage economic development, grants and other spending issues. To insure that the funds are well spent, accountability and public scrutiny are required.

Right now all 50 states provide state spending information on the internet, and for all except CA and VT the info is searchable. “Transparency 20” refers to meeting the standards.

Take a look at TRANSPARENCY FLORIDA, and see how our state spends its money. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group gave Florida an A- grade for the Transparency Florida website, and ranked it third in the US for state government transparency. You may want to subscribe to Florida’s CFO Jeff Atwater’s weekly DOLLARS AND SENSE newsletter to keep apprised of what is happening in our state.