Require local taxing entities to post financial statements and govt contracts

Require all local taxing entities to post their financial statements and local government contracts online.

In order to provide greater transparency to local taxpayers and voters, local taxing entities should also be required to post their annual financial statements online. While many political subdivisions already do this, it should be a statutory requirement that includes the publication of certain debt-related information, such as:

● the total amount of debt currently authorized,
● the debt’s original stated purpose,
● issued and unissued amounts of authorized debt,
● total issued debt spent and unspent, and
● the per capita debt burden on taxpayers.

In addition, local political subdivisions should be required to post their vendor contracts online. State agencies are already required to report all contracts over a certain value to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB). LBB maintains an online searchable database of these contracts , which may be scrutinized by members of the public, taxpayers, and policy makers. No such requirement exists at the local level, yet this information is a critical part of ensuring that local taxpayers are able to understand how their money is being spent.

Requiring each local taxing entity – including cities, counties, school districts, and special taxing districts – to post all vendor contracts over certain values and financial statements online, or to submit them to the state for inclusion in a website maintained by the Comptroller or the Legislative Budget Board (in the case of small political subdivisions that do not maintain their own websites), would ensure that both the state and its political subdivisions are subject to the same transparency requirements.