Senate News Update
From Senator Jane Earll
August 3, 2011

Fiscal Accountability Update

In my July column, I described the Senate's legislation proposing an internet budget database to keep taxpayers informed about the activities of state agencies.  The final enacted version of this legislation, House Bill 15, was signed by Governor Corbett on June 30, 2011.  It is now Act 2011-18, which became effective immediately.

The new law requires the Office of Administration to develop, implement and maintain the PennWATCH (Pennsylvania Web Accountability and Transparency) website and provide access at no cost to the public.  This project will consist of several phases.

By December 31, 2012, the site will contain:

• annual appropriation amounts;
• the name, address and any applicable vendor identifier of any entity receiving payment;
• the amount of funding action or expenditure (payment);
• the fund source and agency authorizing the payment;
• the appropriation and appropriation fiscal year from which the payment is made;
• the amount of Federal and State revenue that has been received from tax and nontax sources and deposited in the State Treasury during the previous month;
• the total number of individuals employed by each Commonwealth agency as of the 15th day of the previous month;
• the name, position title and current annual salary for every Commonwealth agency employee based on the employee's pay schedule and current salary;
• links to each agency website where available; and
• a counter to show the number of times the PennWATCH website is being accessed.

As of January 15, 2013, state employees' benefit information will be added, to provide total compensation information.

By December 31, 2014, further data will be included, as follows:

• a description of the program under which the payment was made; and
• expected and achieved performance outcomes from the expenditure, if available.

The Office of Administration is required to prepare annual reports on the utilization and performance of the PennWATCH website and deliver them to the General assembly beginning on March 30, 2014.

This is a long-overdue development in our ongoing effort to make state government more accessible and to ensure that your tax dollars are spent appropriately and wisely.  Although the website is not up and running yet, as an interim measure, Governor Corbett has mounted an Open Government  website on the state homepage, containing budget, state complement and other pertinent information.  Just go to www.pa.gov and click on the "Open Government" link on the right side of the page.