More on Oklahoma’s OpenBooks 2.0
A House committee today moved forward a bill to expand the financial information on the state’s Open Books Web site.
Here’s the relevant language in the measure, House Bill 3422, by Rep. Ken Miller, R-Edmond:
Effective January 1, 2011, the Office of State Finance shall update the website with “Open Books 2.0,” an expanded online database through which each individual expenditure shall be listed individually separate of aggregated amount. The information shall be searchable by term including name of recipient, entity making expenditure and date of expenditure. The website shall allow members of the public to export sets of data produced by search query in a standardized exportable form. No later than eighteen (18) months after “Open Books 2.0” is online, the Office of State Finance shall create an online archive for each fiscal year, beginning with Fiscal Year 2011, which shall be accessible and searchable to online users.
Finding more detailed information on Open Books is something I’ve blogged about in the past, and other groups like Oklahomans for Responsible Government have called for the expansion, too.
As a data geek, I’m happy to see the bill include language that would allow the financial data to be downloaded. That’s a key part of government transparency in the digital age.
HB 3422 passed the committee unanimously. It now moves to the House floor.
–Paul
Written by Paul Monies
Follow @pmonies
Thank you for joining our conversation on Data Watch. We encourage your discussion but ask that you stay within the bounds of our commenting and posting policy.
Hi, I enjoy your blog. Is there something I can do to obtain updates like a subscription or some thing? I’m sorry I am not familiar with RSS? http://www.blurty.com/talkpost.bml?journal=gargoyle792&itemid=788