Question of the day
Tuesday, Apr 10, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The setup…
On Monday, [Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka’s] office unveiled a new website to make information about the state’s financial health more accessible to concerned residents. The website — called “The Ledger” — includes up-to-date information on state employee salaries, daily general funds balances, state bond ratings, all state financial results. Further, the site prominently displays — in its upper-right corner — the state’s unpaid bill backlog.
As of Tuesday, that figure stood just short of $6 billion, at roughly $5.97 billion, an amount that excludes Medicaid bills and some other expenses. While this data has been available online previously, it has never before been available in one place.
The site also allows users to compare what individuals hold state contracts versus who has contributed to influential politicians, the Daily Herald notes.
Topinka told CBS Chicago that unveiling the site presented rare “really good news” for Illinois taxpayers. She wrote in a statement on the site’s front page that the site will help the public “follow the money.”">”The Ledger” — includes up-to-date information on state employee salaries, daily general funds balances, state bond ratings, all state financial results. Further, the site prominently displays — in its upper-right corner — the state’s unpaid bill backlog.
* The site has been getting rave reviews…
* Editorial: Getting on right side of ledger
* Our view: Government website that shines bright
* Our Opinion: Shining a light on spending — and more
* Our View: Find out where your tax dollars go with new website
* Sweeny: Lest you think that this effort required an expensive contractor who got millions of dollars, Topinka assured us “it was all done by our staff without extra cost to the taxpayers.”
Full disclosure: My former intern Barton Lorimor played a key role in developing the site.
* The Question: First, click here and go to The Ledger. Then, come back and tell us what you think.
- Wensicia - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 12:44 pm:
Very nice! You should put a link to “The Ledger” on your sidebar.
- Hmmm - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 12:44 pm:
I tried to search the contract database and the site said it couldn’t process my request. Oh well, so much for transparency.
- OneMan - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 12:45 pm:
Not bad, But, it would be cool to be easier see who is getting what payments and also having the overall detail available to download (via a link ideally) would be nice.
Also if the results come up all zero it looks like it tosses an error…
http://www.wh1.ioc.state.il.us/Expert/Exp/EEFramesQuery.cfm?Control=Obje&GroupBy=None&Max=20&FY=12&Type=A&ShowBudg=YES&ShowMo=YES&ShowLapse=YES&FundSel=&FundClsSel=&FundGrpSel=&FundTypSel=&FundCatSel=&AgcySel=&AgcyClsSel=&AgcyGrpSel=&AgcyTypSel=&AgcyCatSel=&ApprSel=&ApprClsSel=&ApprGrpSel=&ApprTypSel=&ApprCatSel=&ObjeSel=1345&ObjtSel=&ObjtClsSel=&ObjtGrpSel=&ObjtTypSel=&ObjtCatSel=&SortName=No&CFID=449770&CFTOKEN=87845288
- CircularFiringSquad - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 12:56 pm:
Barton is a Bleepin’ Genius and should get a huge raise….or at least one of JBT’s SALVY gift cards.
- lake county democrat - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 1:52 pm:
Mike Madigan is double-dipping! http://ledger.illinoiscomptroller.com/ledger/?LinkServID=FE957D06-07CA-A3B3-6477FA2870A31632&Issue_Year=2012&Last4=&Agency=&Last_Name=Madigan&Position=&BegRange=&EndRange=&StartRec=1&EndRec=20&GroupBy=Last_Name&CFID=47401&CFTOKEN=96282856
- Barton Lorimor - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 2:11 pm:
OneMan, I just got an email from our IT staff. They recreated the problem and were able to fix it. Try your query again.
- Pot calling kettle - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 2:14 pm:
Finally!
I met Dan Hynes in 2007 and suggested this to him. I imagine many others have made the same suggestion.
I hope they work on this to clarify what some of the terms mean and perhaps allow some graphical displays (for example a revenue-expense display for an agency).
Happy this is a reality and simple to use. Thanks and kudos to JBT and her staff.
- titan - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 2:16 pm:
A good start…needs a little polishing (e.g. the chief legal officer for most state agencies is listed and the “General Council” and some other state staff are mistitled).
- OneMan - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:13 pm:
Looks good now for that issue.
- Kasich Walker, Jr. - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:23 pm:
Hey, appropriated and unappropriated funds for fire protection, legal fees, postage, auditing and management services, refunds of other grants, planning, and reg. conference expenditures plus vendor payments are each greater than what’s shown as appropriated and unappropriated for Teachers Retirement for FY 2012.
If I’m reading it wrong, than maybe it’s not set up that well.
- Kasich Walker, Jr. - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:25 pm:
In case anyone wonders what I was looking at:
http://www.wh1.ioc.state.il.us/Expert/Exp/EEFramesQuery.cfm?Control=State&GroupBy=Obje&Max=20&FY=12&Type=B&ShowBudg=YES&ShowMo=NO&ShowLapse=NO&FundSel=&FundClsSel=&FundGrpSel=&FundTypSel=&FundCatSel=&AgcySel=&AgcyClsSel=&AgcyGrpSel=&AgcyTypSel=&AgcyCatSel=&ApprSel=&ApprClsSel=&ApprGrpSel=&ApprTypSel=&ApprCatSel=&ObjeSel=&ObjtSel=&ObjtClsSel=&ObjtGrpSel=&ObjtTypSel=&ObjtCatSel=&SortName=No&CFID=449770&CFTOKEN=87845288
- Mike - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:47 pm:
To think it took two years of work and a lawsuit by AFP and Representative Tryon to pass a piece of legislation forcing the Governor to do something similar at god knows the cost. Only in Illinois!
Kudos to Judy and her staff for making the obvious look simple.
Priceless!
- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:50 pm:
KWJr-I looked at that screen you captured an it appears to be completely off kilter. It looks like it may be adding line items repeatedly but that’s just a guess.
No way should total approps plus non-approps be hitting $277 billion, though.
- amalia - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:57 pm:
so that means Barton is on her staff?
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 3:59 pm:
The Speaker is a good buy for Illinois, like him or not.
On the other hand, his mouthpiece and frequent commenter here doesn’t turn up on The Ledger in all the logical places.
Hmm, maybe shoulda used his blog handle.
- Demoralized - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 4:11 pm:
I think this is a bad idea until they get this in a more user friendly format. The general public isn’t going to know what a lot of this stuff even means (see comments here) and are going to automatically jump to conclusions about things they have no earthly idea about. The state’s financial system is a piece of garbage. Not everything is recorded the same way by agencies so you can’t even do apples to apples comparisons on things. Until their is a unified financial system and consistency in reporting all you are going to see is muck that is difficult to understand unless you work with it every day.
- mark walker - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 5:22 pm:
Very nice. Especially like the automated match of contracts and contributors, and the daily summary.
It should inform interested citizens much better, and probably lead the general public to understand that the state’s fiscal and cash positions are worse than previously thought, and that the scope of corruption involving money is narrower.
BTW, I was impressed earlier this week with the new cloud resource available sharing data from City of Chicago, Cook Co, and the State. I got to it on the Cook Co website.
- DuPage Dave - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 6:40 pm:
Not to knock Topinka but most of this info was available on the Comptroller’s website before, in a much less convenient format, to be true. Hats off to Barton for the new look.
Improvements are still needed- the contract data base does not allow you to skip to, for example, page 2122 out of 42,000. You have to go one page at a time!
Also- the search function only worked once out of 10 tries today. The publicity overwhelmed the capacity of the system to respond.
Also, the feature on the front screen- matching contractors and political donors- is pretty misleading. Most contracts are listed by the name of a business and donations are listed by the name of an individual. Pretty hard to match those up.
Still- a good effort to move in the right direction, even if oversold a tad.
- Sunshine - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 6:55 pm:
An outstanding job on the design of the site, the order of the content, and the informational value…and kudos to Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka’s office for undertaking this great effort.
- RFL - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 7:01 pm:
Lake County Democrat, that was funny. I do wonder if that Security Guard named Michael Madigan that got one $265.18 paycheck from the Secretary of State is related.
- RFL - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 7:03 pm:
My mistake, it looks like Michael Madigan the Security Guard also got paid 50K per year in 2010 & 2011. I wonder what is going on with the records that it shows him only getting one small paycheck so far in 2012.
- Wilson Pickett - Tuesday, Apr 10, 12 @ 8:11 pm:
Impressive! I will have to tip my hat to Judy Barr Topinka. I was looking at the salaries for a couple of guys that I know that work at the prison. They had high school educations and were knocking down over a hundred grand a year. In fairness to them, their salaries for 2011 may represent a lot of overtime pay? Either way though, it is easy to see why the state is in financial trouble. These guys are good guys but they know they have a good thing going. They are sweating that Governor Quinn and the state government might finally be forced into finally doing something about their large pension obligations.They are afraid that this time the state’s dire financial situation might force Quinn into rendering a a decision that will benefit the state’s taxpayers instead of doing what he is told to do by their union’s leadership.
- Coach - Wednesday, Apr 11, 12 @ 8:31 am:
=== most of this info was available on the Comptroller’s website before ===
Same observation here. Moreover, the new site does little to improve the search functionality.
The matching of contractors and campaign donations, in particular, has gathered much praise for JBT. But that system actually started years ago under Hynes. Here’s a Trib piece with former comptroller candidate David Miller crediting Hynes for that:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-15/news/ct-met-miller-salary-plan-0816-20100815_1_comptroller-candidates-salaries-miller
- Anyone Remember? - Wednesday, Apr 11, 12 @ 9:20 am:
Leaving aside who has done what (and IF all JBT did was put in place a more user friendly access portal, that is still a big step in the right direction), three suggested improvements.
1. “Doing Business As” data - many businesses operate under legal names that do not match their public name. For example, the Holiday Inn of Carlinville had a DBA of Carlinville Steel Company. If you didn’t use Carlinville Steel Company, you couldn’t access the data for that hotel.
2. University data, particularly payroll. The universities make the data so difficult to access that the quickest way to get U of I payroll data is … The Daily Illini website.
3. The “contract to political donations” matching - could that be expanded to the various board appointments, Executive (not just Governor, but also Secretary of State and Comptroller) AND Legislative (Procurement Policy Board)?
- anon - Thursday, Apr 12, 12 @ 12:50 am:
Its a pretty poorly done website, no offense to those involved. Very hard to search and the data isn’t easily accessible. The smart move would have been to utilize the state’s data portal(https://data.illinois.gov/) to provide data.
As is, the site is circa 2000 in its clunkiness and is basically a duplication of the information available at the sunshine site (http://www2.illinois.gov/sunshine/Pages/TransparencyAndAccountabilityPortal.html).