Budget Transparency
5 Significant Benefits of Budget Transparency:
- Accountability – Clarity about the use of public funds is necessary so that public representatives and officials can be accountable for effectiveness and efficiency.
- Integrity – Public spending is vulnerable not only to waste and misuse, but also to fraud. “Sunlight is the best policy” for preventing corruption and maintain high standards of integrity in the use of public funds.
- Inclusiveness – Budget decisions can profoundly affect the interest and living standards of different people and groups in society; transparency involves an informed and inclusive debate about budget policy impacts.
- Trust – An open and transparent budget process fosters trust in society that people’s views and interests are respected and that public money is used well.
- Quality – Transparent and inclusive budgeting supports better fiscal outcomes and more responsive, impactful and equitable public policies. (Excerpted from OECD Budget Transparency Toolkit: Practical Steps for Supporting Openness, Integrity and Accountability in Public Financial Management).
Is the State of Florida Budget Transparent? The answer unfortunately, is No.
Currently, Florida’s process for developing a state budget is too secretive. Major funding decisions are made by a small number of Legislative leaders and government staff.
The remaining elected legislators that make up the “Rank and File” are excluded from the budget process. All legislators should have access to a more transparent budget process in order to make better government decisions and understand how budget priorities are determined.
What Should Florida Government Officials do to Increase Budget Transparency?
Government budgets at the state and local levels should be developed with inclusive public participation, founded from public priorities, be accessible for Floridians to monitor the information and results in order to maximum the benefits for all Floridians.
Florida should provide a state budget tracking website that is open to all legislators, members of the press, and public. A transparent budget tracking website would offer open and accessible information on the entire budget cycle: including the development of state agency budget requests, sub-committee budget development, the Florida Governor’s budget recommendations, budget conference committee negotiations, and the final budget agreement.
Visit Integrity Florida’s research report – Budget Transparency in the Sunshine State December 2012
Research Publications
Subsidizing Corporate Tax Dodgers
Download the full PDF report here
February 2015
Executive Summary
As Florida policymakers consider cutting corporate profits tax revenues, this study seeks to
provide more transparency about the actual corporate profit tax rates being paid by the Fortune
500 corporations headquartered in Florida to state governments in the U.S.
While the Florida Legislature maintains a policy of secrecy that prevents disclosure of corporate
profits tax payments made by individual corporations, the staff of Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ)
and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) conducted a special study of state
corporate profits tax payments made by Florida’s 17 Fortune 500 corporations nationally at the
request of […]
Budget Transparency in the Sunshine State
Download the full PDF report here
December 2012
Executive Summary
According to a March 2012 report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) titled
“Following the Money 2012,” Florida received a D grade (59/100) on a report card of how the 50
states rate in providing online access to government spending data. In comparison, Texas
received the top score with an A grade (98/100).
The First Amendment Foundation, an organization that has been protecting and advancing open
government in Florida for over 25 years, and Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan research institute
and government watchdog group, have assessed the Transparency 2.0 website developed by
Spider Data Services and […]