DiNAPOLI: OPEN BOOK NEW YORK

The New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, has offered a valuable tool for the public to track government spending.

This is terrific news!

Through his office in Albany, Project Open Book NY is helping anyone with a computer follow and understand the complex spending habits of our elected representatives.

This should thrill everyone contributing to the system as this program details the 113 state agency expenditures, like: salaries, travel costs and outsourced consultants.

You can also search State contracts in real time to see who is doing business with the State. Mind you, this site is in it’s infancy, with plans to expand the breadth of financial spending in our state in the not-so-distant future.

DiNapoli said: “We’re trying to increase transparency and “open the books” on state government so New Yorkers will have a better understanding of how state government works.”

I think you’ll join me in applauding our state comptroller for this advancement in information dispersal. For too long, we have suffered in the dark, subjected to whatever the leadership offered us in the way of info scraps.

Sure, we could FOIL for the individual expenses we discovered through diligent research, but nothing will compare to the free flow of info we are about to access.

Thank you Thomas.

Chck out the site: Office of the State Comptroller