Update on Financial Transparency Website UGAA Fall Conference November 30, 2016 Division of Finance Utah Department of Administrative Services

The Utah Transparency Advisory Board (Board) and the Utah Public Finance Website (Website) were created in statute during the 2008 general legislative session. The Board advises the Division of Finance on matters related to the Website. Purpose of Website: “The Utah Public Finance Website shall permit Utah Taxpayers to view, understand, and track the use of taxpayer dollars……” UC 63A-3-402(2) The Website is administered by the Division of Finance and operated by Utah Interactive (UI), under contract with the Department of Technology Services.

The Website should only include information considered public under the State’s GRAMA statutes. As required by statute, the Website was first operational in May of 2009. Currently the Website has: 551 Governmental Entities posting data 182 million records Total of $830 billion

Participating entities: The State of Utah including executive, legislative, and judicial branches and all departments, divisions, agencies, boards, commissions, council, committees, and institutions (colleges and universities). Counties Municipalities (cities and towns) Local Districts Interlocals Special Service Districts School Districts and Charter Schools

Participating entities continued: Independent State entities: Utah Dairy Commission Heber Valley Historic Railroad Authority Utah State Railroad Museum Authority Utah Housing Corporation Utah State Fair Corporation School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration School and Institutional Trust Fund Office Utah Communications Authority Utah Energy Infrastructure Authority Utah Capital Investment Corporation Military Installation Development Authority

Participating entity does not include: Workers’ Compensation Fund Utah State Retirement Office Taxed Interlocal Entities Entities with reduced reporting requirements: Utah Educational Savings Plan Utah Capital Investment Corporation Utah Housing Corporation School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration

Requirements for Participating Entities: Detail Revenues and Expenditures from General Ledger reported quarterly. Employee Compensation data by Employee name reported annually. Chief Financial Officers of each participating entity are required to certify on the website, at least annually, that the data uploaded for their entity is accurate and complete. Link to school report cards published on the State Board of Education’s website. UC 63A-3-402(2)(h) Annual School Plant Capital Outlay report for all new facilities (no minimum $) or remodels that cost $2 million or more. UC 63A-3- 402(7)

New Direction for Website: The Website was ground breaking when it was implemented in 2009. Finance is now looking at other website platforms such as Socrata and OpenGov.com. UI is in the process of moving the Website database to Amazon servers in the cloud for increased speed and upload/download capabilities. The Board has created a subgroup to determine priorities for updating the Website. Below are the subgroup’s current priorities for the Website in priority order:

SUBGROUP PRIORITIES: Category Item Description Speed and Access Move power users to new environment give direct access Long term viability Application service provider Developer Data Richness Tax incentives information Platform (MySQL, MS-SQL, Sybase, Oracle, etc.) Improve notification of upload status (completed) Improve speed of upload Public User Interface Web-site Speed Keyword Search Function Location-based user interface Advance Query Dashboards Exception Reports (Wall of Shame) Budgets to Actuals Roll-up by Entity Type such as All K-12 Schools, All Counties, All Municipalities, etc.

Recent Developments and Issues: The State Auditor is withholding state funds from entities who are not complying with the Website’s reporting requirements, resulting in increased compliance. Budget threshold for reporting to the Website was eliminated. All participating entities, regardless of budget size are required to report. 300 more entities to report. Part-time employee hired by Finance. Component units (as defined by GASB) of all participating entities must report to the Website.

Recent Developments and Issues continued: School Districts and Charter Schools must use the State Board of Education chart of accounts when reporting to Website. Division of Finance has proposed a change to how some records are protected on the Website. State Auditor is annually reporting local governments balance sheet data on the website. (Census bureau reporting and bench marking) State Auditor is requiring a special field in file uploads to map/cross walk the entities’ chart of accounts to the auditor’s uniform chart of accounts.

Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Transparency Website Grades Year Points Grade 2016 88 B+ 2015 86 B 2014 82 B- 2013 88.5 2012 87

Additional Projects overseen by the Board: GRAMA request portal for state and local governments administered by Division of Archives. Open Data portal administered by Department of Technology Services.

Any Questions? Contact us: John Reidhead 801-538-3020 jreidhead@utah.gov Darrell Swensen 801-538-3059 dswensen@utah.gov John Draney 801-538-3285 jdraney@utah.gov Brenda Lee 801-538-3102 brendalee@utah.gov