Updates to Nebraskaspending.gov

As you may have read in the Omaha World Herald (http://www.omaha.com/article/20091221/NEWS01/912219991).

On Monday, I continued my commitment to bringing transparency to Nebraska state government by putting the state's checkbook online. Nebraskans can now see exactly where their tax dollars are being spent, right down to the last penny.

This interactive list of 1.76 million payments made by the State of Nebraska includes all travel reimbursement, office supplies, state employee payroll and all other expenditures made by the State.

Here is a link to the new section of Nebraskaspending.gov:
http://www.nebraskaspending.gov/expenditures/2008.htm

Providing a more accountable and transparent government has always been one of my top priorities. I pledge to continue to improve and update nebraskaspending.gov during the next year.

-Shane

Heritage Foundation Spotlights NebraskaSpending

Yesterday, I sat down with some analysts with the Heritage Foundation and spoke about NebraskaSpending.com and the need to bring better transparency to all levels of government. We also spoke about Operation Rightful Owner, a federal initiative that would reunite millions of Americans with unredeemed savings bonds. The Unredeemed U.S. Savings Bond Act of 2009, sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller (WV) and Pat Robertson (Kan.) creates a state-federal partnership to help find the owners of 40 million savings bonds with a value of more than $16.5 billion.

Nebraska is owed $115 million! Now, that's a real economic stimulus package.

Here's a quick view of the article:

In the Green Room: Neb. State Treasurer Shane Osborn

In three short years as "Nebraska's CFO" Shane Osborn has revolutionized the way Nebraskans interact and keep tabs on their government. It's called NebraskaSpending.com and it cost only $38,000 to make.

Nebraska Gets Another National Plug

I was in our nation's capitol a few weeks ago and had the distinct pleasure of visiting with House Republican Leader John Boehner. Congressman Boehner has just unveiled a new blog called GOP State Solutions which

is devoted to Congressional Republicans working with reform-minded GOP governors and state legislators to fight Washington bureaucracy, inefficiency, and waste and to promote better solutions to the challenges facing the American people.

During our conversation, I told Congressman Boehner about NebraskaSpending.com and he was immediately impressed. Like so many other elected officials across the country, he was under the impression that in order to create a transparency website, a state would have to spend millions of dollars. When I told him we created ours for only $35 thousand, his jaw nearly hit the floor.

So, he gave us a nice little shout-out in his blog:

In Nebraska, for example, State Treasurer Shane Osborn has created a user-friendly, inexpensive, and effective public website that allows citizens to monitor state spending activity.

One of the things NebraskaSpending.com has succeeded in doing, is demonstrate to both local and federal officials alike that effective public policy tools do not have to have an exorbitant price tag. My good friend Jason Petersen and the rest of his team over at Pickering Creative Group has done just a great job in making our website attractive, simple and easy to use.

Once again, Nebraska is setting the example for the rest of the country.

Nebraska grabs national attention again

Just wanted to pass this along to everyone. 

A few weeks ago the DC Examiner interviewed me regarding my transparency website, NebraskaSpending.com. There has been a huge push over the last few years for more states to start creating similar state spending websites but unfortunately legislators are resisting due to their perception that such a project would cost millions of dollars.

That's why NebraskaSpending.com has become so popular to the taxpayer advocacy groups: we built it for only $38,000. Showing receipts to taxpayers does not have to be a pricey venture. 

Enjoy the article.

Putting ‘service’ back in public office

Virginia legislators who reportedly are laying out “seven figures” to put state spending online, should have paid attention when Nebraska state treasurer Shane Osborn wrote recently to say he could do it for much less. After all, he’d already done it for Nebraska. But to date the Virginia solons have not taken up the Nebraskan’s offer.

Osborn is a former Navy pilot whose plane crashed in 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet in international air space. The near-death experience, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, clarified things for him, and when Osborn retired from the Navy he had a new mission: Put the “service” back in public office.

In the first year of his first term as Nebraska state treasurer (after defeating his own party’s incumbent), Osborn posted the entire state budget online. Nebraskaspending.com is searchable, user-friendly and interactive. It clearly explains where Nebraska’s $6.8 billion in revenue comes from (56.3 percent from state taxes, 32.4 percent from the federal government), how it’s spent, and lists all contracts signed in 2007 - including agencies, contract dates, vendors, description of services, and exactly how much Nebraskans are paying for them. The website so far has had over 600,000 unique visitors who spend 18 minutes on average keeping tabs on their elected officials. Next, he’s planning to add city, public school, and state university budgets to the mix.

Osborn didn’t beg the legislature for funds or spend millions of tax dollars, either. “I used my own staff to compile the data,” he told The Examiner. “We worked with other agencies and just hunted it down.” The total cost: $38,000 – most of it going to a local web designer. A state IT grant provided $25,000 and Osborn took the remaining $13,000 from his own budget. “I just viewed it as my job,” he said. “Citizens have a right to know who the state does business with.”

Osborn isn’t just about making state spending transparent. He has also hired a collection agency to find owners of unclaimed property in Nebraska. In the program’s first year, Osborn returned an unprecedented $12 million – in amounts ranging from $900 to $600,000 – to more than a million surprised and grateful people. He’s now spearheading a national pilot project to digitize unclaimed property records so they can be available online. Can this guy be cloned?

Middle East Seminar: Day 3

The problem we face in countries struggling to make the conversion to privatization and capitalism reminds me of my time in late 2000 while flying surveillance missions out of Ecuador. At the time, the United States faced a drawn out and uncertain election for the Presidency between George W. Bush and Al Gore. 

The lengthy and infamous legal battle cause many Ecuadorians, as well as those I met in South and Central America, to question me about our electoral college. For the most part, their concerns can be summed up thusly: 

"If the United States is supposed to be the global example of Democracy and be responsible for overseeing our elections, how then is your country unable to determine the outcome of your own President?"

That question, which to Americans may seem overly naive and simplistic, is a microcosm of a much larger issue: the United States, like it or not, sets the example of liberty for the rest of the world. 

Today, I see the same type of question with the free market. 

Egyptian officials were clear in their hesitation and mild disgust towards their country's efforts to convert (albeit slowly) to our economic system for over 15 years. Now, they are made to believe that the U.S. economy is broken. They do not dig into the details as to what caused our current financial crisis and are unaware that the Congress forced our lending institutions into making bad loans. They believe, as do most our own countrymen, that an open and transparent government mechanism could have prevented many of these problems.

Whether it's in the U.S. economy or other global markets, transparency is the only hope we have in returning trust and confidence to our financial system and the world in general. If the government is going to continue to use our taxes to pay for their projects, infrastructure and general well-being of our country, than we have every right to see a receipt for how those tax dollars are being utilized.

That's called accountability.

This was truly music to my ears to hear these Egyptian diplomats demand transparency in their own government and in the aid the United States provides around the world. While we will continue to disagree with many of the approaches used by Egypt in the realm of human rights and democracy issues, we did find common ground on a major aspect of how a government should be run.

Praise for NebraskaSpending.com!

NebraskaSpending.com received some high praise today from the Sunshine Review Blog. 

Sunshine Review is operated by the Sam Adams Alliance, a public advocacy group which "strives to educate and inform citizens about the important political issues necessary to maintaining a free society, including government accountability, government transparency, property rights protection, fiscal responsibility, free speech, and citizen initiative and referendum rights. In doing so, it aims to broaden the public debate on the proper role of state and local government in society, and to inspire greater involvement of intelligent, concerned citizens."

From their blog: 

"Shane Osborn, State Treasurer of Nebraska, has been aggressively promoting NE's new transparency website, NebraskaSpending.com. Treasurer Osborn has said he hopes to set a national example for transparency -- and with his new website upgrades, he is definitely a leader on the issue.

"The site originally featured agency budgets and programs, taxes levied, and a chart with historical budgets. New upgrades to the site now allow taxpayers to review $20k + contracts, $500K + expenditures, detailed information on 93 counties and data regarding Nebraska's Operation Investment Pool.

"Although I have been (rightfully) accused of being a data junkie, my favorite part of the site was Osborn's description of his job: As State Treasurer, my office is responsible for the receipting and disbursing of all state funds, which includes accurately recording these transactions and informing the Legislature through a yearly report on the state's financial picture. Further, as a public servant I believe elected officials have a duty to show the public how their tax dollars are being spent right down to the last penny.

"We couldn't agree more. Great work."

Bringing better transparency to government spending is an issue that I hold very dear and I truly appreciate the compliments from such an outstanding organization like the Sam Adams Alliance. If you haven't already, please take a few moments and check out NebraskaSpending.com and let me know what you think.