Sen. Browne Bill Would Open Spending Records to Public

Senate Bill 1350 would create PA Taxpayer Transparency Act

Pennsylvania taxpayers ultimately pay the commonwealth's bills; therefore, they should have a basic right to easily monitor how state government spends its money, according to Senator Pat Browne (R-16).

With that in mind, Senator Browne introduced the Pennsylvania Taxpayer Transparency Act (Senate Bill 1350) on April 7. The bill received bi-partisan support and was introduced with 22 co-sponsors.

"The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act enacted in 2006 created a searchable website to increase transparency and accountability in federal government spending," said Senator Browne, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "Since then, five states have enacted similar legislation creating a similar website at the state level. Four states have issued executive orders opening the records and 12 other states have legislation pending to open their spending records. It is time that Pennsylvania takes action as well."

SB 1350 would direct the Office of Budget to create and maintain a searchable budget database-driven website that the public can access, for free, to obtain:

Information on grants and contracts provided by government agencies. All transactions above $25,000 would be accessible to the public;
Agency performance indicators and quarterly performance results compared to these indicators;
Agency line-by-line appropriation analysis including user-friendly detailed monetary breakouts and detailed narrative descriptions.

"Since the General Assembly has taken steps in the past few months to improve the way we disclose information to the residents of the Commonwealth, I feel that this legislation is another important and essential step in that direction," Senator Browne said.

Contact:

Lesley Crozier
(717) 787-1349