1 Utah Transparency Requirements for State and Local Governments Presented by: Brenda Lee, Assistant Director Division of Finance Utah Department of Administrative Services

2 THE MESSENGER REQUESTS THAT SHE PLEASE NOT BE SHOT. THANK YOU!

3 “The other day I got out my can opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought what am I doing?” Jack Handy

4 UC 63A creates the Utah Public Finance Website (UPFW) –Permit taxpayers to view, understand, and track use of taxpayer dollars on the internet without paying a fee. Statute requires the State and Higher Ed to post financial information to UPFW. Local governments required to post to the UPFW or their own website. Division of Finance to establish & maintain the UPFW & coordinate & regulate posting by local entities.

5 Utah Transparency Advisory Board Permanent Members: Chair: John Reidhead, Director Division of Finance, Department of Administrative Services Vice Chair: Senator Wayne Niederhauser Representative Kenneth Sumsion Jonathan Ball, Legislative Fiscal Analyst John Nixon, Executive Director, Governor's Office of Planning and Budget Stephen Fletcher, CIO/Executive Director, Department of Technology Services

6 Three temporary Board Members just recently appointed by the Governor to represent the following: Municipalities: Mia Love, Mayor, Saratoga Springs. Counties: Bruce Larsen, Chief Deputy Auditor, Salt Lake County Auditor’s Office. (Recently resigned.) Special & Local Districts: LeGrand Bitter, Executive Director, Utah Association of Special Districts. Their terms end June 30, 2011.

7 Utah Transparency Advisory Board (UTAB): –Advise Finance on implementation and administration of the website. –Determine what information shall be provided with a specified content, reporting frequency, and form. –Determine search methods and criteria to be used if entity uses their own website.

8 Utah Transparency Advisory Board (UTAB) continued: –Evaluate the cost effectiveness of providing certain information. –Establish size or budget thresholds to identify those local entities that will participate in website. –Give special consideration to those entities with an annual budget of less than $10 million.

9 The website was operational on May 15, 2009, as required by statute. The State posted revenues and expenses on May 15, 2009 for FY We have continued to post this information monthly. The State posted employee compensation information in Sept 2009 and again in Sept of 2010.

10 Must post required information by May 15, 2010: –Institutions of Higher Education (must use State’s website) –School Districts –Charter Schools –Public Transit Districts Data posted for fiscal year that begins no later than 7/1/09 Currently 95% of these entities have posted revenue and expense data.

11 Required to post information by May 15, 2011: –Counties –Municipalities –Local Districts under Title 17B –Special Service Districts under Title 17D Data posted for fiscal year that begins no later than 7/1/10

12 Utah Transparency Board Policies: –Entities with a current annual budget of <$1 million are exempt at this time. –Based on the most recent total annual budget of either revenues or expenditures, whichever is greater. –Revenues and expenditures must be submitted at least quarterly, within one month after fiscal quarter end.

13 “ RIDE THE HORSE IN THE DIRECTION IT IS GOING.” Werner Earhard

14 Utah Transparency Board Policies continued: –Entities must post all detail revenue and expense transactions from their accounting system including internal transactions, journal entries, vendor payments, corrections, adjustments, etc. –Website summarizes detail and allows drill down and search through the data by payee name, organization, category, and fund. –Board Policies: Resources & Links

15 Utah Transparency Board Policies continued: –Employee compensation data will be submitted once each year and within 3 months of fiscal year end and will include by employee: Employee name, unless protected under GRAMA Total benefits only, detail benefits not allowed Total salary/wages Total incentive awards Total leave paid (if recorded separately in entity’s system) Title Pay Rate Gender, unless protected under GRAMA

16 Employee data soon to be added: Height Weight Marital status Blood type Just Kidding!!

17 THE MESSENGER REQUESTS THAT SHE PLEASE NOT BE SHOT. THANK YOU!

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21 How the State’s website works: –Entities don’t need to spend time & money developing and maintaining another website. –Each entity uploads their own files using a simple data submission process. –Separate administrative website to upload files. –Admin website is password protected. –Edits of record count and dollar amount.

22 How the State’s website works – continued: –Finance has created a spreadsheet template which simplifies the file creation process for those entities without IT resources. If they can get data into a spreadsheet, this template can be used to create the file for the website. –Finance staff will work with each entity to help them to map their data to the website file layout. –There are 2 test websites, a display website and an upload website.

23 How the State’s website works – continued: –Test websites allow for upload of files in a safe test environment. –Test websites are password protected, not public websites. –Ability to view data on test website and work through issues.

24 How the State’s website works – continued: –Ability to delete and re-add test files. –Flexible data structure, fields can be customized for each entity. –Pipe delimited text file ( | ). –Transparency Board must review and approve use of entity’s own website.

25 Privacy Concerns –Shouldn’t send private/protected data sent to website, except for temporarily protected vendor/payee names. –GRAMA UC Title 63G Chapter 2: Public records, Private records, Controlled records, Protected records.

26 Privacy Concerns – continued: –Federal restrictions: HIPAA – medical information FERPA – student information Other state or federal statutes –Vendor names: “Not Provided” – permanently protected “Name Redacted” – temporarily protected –Website has an automated way to protect and unprotect vendor names.

27 Privacy Concerns – continued: –Transaction Descriptions Filter out private data such as: –Social security numbers –Account numbers –Welfare client names, etc. –Or use a more generic description The State uses lowest level of category –For example: Office Supplies

28 Demonstration of Website –Levels of Government –Entities –Transaction Types Expense (detail from G/L) Revenue (detail from G/L) Payroll/Employee Compensation (employee data from payroll system) Stimulus Expense (state use only) Stimulus Revenue (state use only) –Fiscal Period

29 Demonstration of Website - continued –Organization Further defines Entity –Category Further defines Transaction Type –Fund Self-balancing set of accounts –Name Search Payee/Customer/Vendor: Used for all Transaction Types

30 Detail Transaction View –Posting Date –Website Upload Date –Entity Transaction ID –Transaction Description –Contract Description –Contract Number –Amount – and/or phone number contact

31 Transaction Downloads –Ability to download into Excel spreadsheet. –Download currently limited to 10,000 records. –Larger downloads available upon request. Possible Future Development: –Including detail payment info from subsidiary payment systems such as MMIS (Medicaid), PACMIS (Dept of Human Services), etc. –Loading more contract information and copies of contracts.

32 Contacts at Finance: –Darrell Swensen (functional) –Mary Lee Hickey (technical) –Brenda Lee (project manager)