Is the state spending money in the right areas to help our students succeed? How much has congestion improved for the billions spent on transportation?

Thanks to the passage of a recent bill, taxpayers will have the opportunity to search for answers to these questions conveniently.

Just in time for Sunshine Week, the Legislature last week unanimously adopted a reform to help shine a light on the details of state spending (SB 6818: Promoting transparency in state expenditures). This proposal is based on Washington Policy Center’s recommendation that the state adopt a searchable budget Web site. The bill is now before the governor, awaiting her signature.

This reform requires that by next January a searchable budget Web site be created that will allow any citizen with Internet access to search a single Web site for details on where their tax dollars are spent and for what results.

Among the information required to be included on this new searchable budget Web site: state expenditures by fund or account; expenditures by agency, program, and subprogram; state revenues by source; state expenditures by budget object and subobject; state agency workloads, caseloads, and performance measurements; and historical information on state spending as well as access to state personal service contracts.

This proposal is modeled after a recent federal reform that was co-sponsored by presidential candidates Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill. In 2006, they helped sponsor the bipartisan Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act that passed Congress unanimously and was signed into law.

Many states have adapted this federal reform and put it into law. With the passage of SB 6818, Washington is now joining them.

The lead sponsor of the bill, Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland, said, “One of two things will happen when you examine the budget. You either find mistakes so you can fix them, or you show what a good job you’re already doing. Either way, taxpayers win because we waste less on the bad and invest more in the good” Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, who sponsored similar legislation this year, noted, “My constituents tell me they’d need a PhD from MIT to understand how and where Olympia spends their money. With this new state budget Web site, the average person can track who gets the money, what they have to deliver, and whether or not we’re getting what we pay for. That kind of government transparency is long overdue.”

Open government stalwarts State Auditor Brian Sonntag, a Democrat, and Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, also support this reform.

In fact, Sonntag testified in favor of the bill, saying, “Sometimes common sense and public policy do meet and this is one of those times. … We’re talking about the public’s business and the public’s information and those things being subject to the public light of day. This is fundamental to good government and government accountability and I am proud to support this idea, this concept and lend my voice to it. It’s never wrong to open the doors and let people in and see what their government is doing.”

The state’s new searchable budget Web site reform should help to connect taxpayers with the spending decisions being made on their behalf by shining a light on what is being purchased and accomplished with their tax dollars. Unless an unexpected veto cloud blows over the horizon, the forecast for spending transparency is looking brighter, thanks to the decision of lawmakers to prioritize improving citizen access to details on state spending.