It is National Sunshine Week, which celebrates transparency in government, including creating awareness about requesting information from governments through FOIA public record requests. In Arizona, there are two tools provided by state agencies that allow anyone to look online at some of the government spending by state and local governments. Although it is a minimal amount of data, it reveals some missteps and waste.
Royce Flora, who served as Maricopa County Treasurer until January 2021 when he resigned early in disgust over the actions of the Maricopa County Supervisors, told The Arizona Sun Times he was disappointed with the amount of information available. “The political elite have always tried to place their people in key positions to protect and hide what they are doing,” he said. “The Maricopa Board of Supervisors got very good at this and now control all information flow. They are the Putins of Arizona. True transparence means not only providing information but in a usable and easily understandable format to the taxpayer.”
The Arizona State Treasurer manages azcheckbook.com, which provides information about funding the state gets from all sources, including the federal government, and how much it is distributing to schools, cities, and towns. The Arizona Department of Administration operates openbooks.az.gov, which provides checkbook-level information about individual state expenditures, including at the city and county levels.
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times
