At the May 9th Board of Supervisors meeting the County Finance Department presented a new program that will allow citizens to track and review most County financial expenditures. The new program called "Open Checkbook" is available on the County Website.
The Finance Department expects to continue to enhance and improve the program over time as they move toward increasing government transparency. At the meeting it was noted by County staff that out of the top 25 counties in Virginia only 4, to include Spotsylvania, provide any sort of accounting data to its citizens.
It is important to note that this new program will be updated monthly and some data, due to state and federal law, will not be available.
The program can be found by clicking here.
The Finance Department's presentation to the Board can be found here at marker 3:47:00
I wholeheartedly support this new program and would advocate for its continued improvement and maintenance. However, transparency does have a cost as this program will add to the work load of the Finance Department and will require county employees to dedicate time to maintain and update the program each month. Nonetheless, this is a small price to pay to increase transparency and provide county citizens tools to hold their elected officials accountable.