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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 15, 2008

A Capitol Perspective
A column by State Senator Pat Browne
16th Senatorial District

New Law Opens State Contracts to Public Review

Since Pennsylvania's taxpayers ultimately pay the Commonwealth's bills, they have a basic right to easily monitor how state government spends its money. That's, in part, why I strongly supported the passage of a new law that gives taxpayers access to a searchable online database to review state contracts worth $5,000 or more.

Under Act 3 of 2008, the Pennsylvania Treasury is required to maintain a website with a contracts search function that enables citizens to locate contract summaries, contracts, and other documents, such as purchase orders and amendments. Contracts can be searched by agency, contracting party, amount, date, subject matter and contract number.

The web address for the database is http://contracts.patreasury.org/search.aspx. The site includes a link to a "Help" page that instructs users on how to conduct searches.

Act 3 is a comprehensive enhancement of Pennsylvania's Open Records Law. In addition to putting state contracts online, it implemented an essential open government reform: reversing the presumption of access to records and putting the burden of proof on a government agency denying public access to a record. Legislative records and financial records of the judiciary are subject to the same presumption – records are considered public unless proven otherwise.

As a complement to the provisions of Act 3, I introduced the Pennsylvania Taxpayer Transparency Act (Senate Bill 1350) earlier this year. 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.

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act enacted in 2006 created a searchable website to increase transparency and accountability in federal government spending. 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.

State Senator Pat Browne represents the 16th Senatorial District and serves as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.