Bolinsky: Find Out Where Your Tax Dollars Are Spent
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A new program for Connecticut taxpayers was recently created to keep you informed on where your tax dollars are being spent. The state’s financial transparency website – OpenConnecticut – can be accessed through the State Comptroller’s website, and features new applications that may be particularly useful, including:
- OpenCheckbook: Allows you to search real-time information (updated nightly) about who received payments from the State of Connecticut for goods or services and how much they received. Data can be explored by searching for specific payee names – whether it be a business, individual, municipality or non-profit – or by browsing by government function. The application allows the user to drill down from aggregated spending accounts all the way to each individual payment to a payee.
- OpenBudget: Allows the public to explore the state budget, view how state spending and revenue is tracking against the state’s actual budgeted amounts throughout the year (data is updated monthly), and quickly and easily look at spending trends for each line item or higher-level spending category over the last five years.
Click on the flyer below to view a PDF of step-by-step instructions on how to navigate these online tools:
