One of the most important tasks for government is to be transparent. Some governments are better than others at accomplishing that goal.
Idaho state Controller Brandon Woolf today launched a local section on Transparent Idaho - a website that includes thousands of pieces of data and government information, in an easy to use format.
On Transparent Idaho, you can track how COVID relief dollars were spent, you can see showcases on the state budget and workforce, and you can even do an easy search to look at data in near real time.
Want to see how a state agency's spending is progressing? There's a graphic for that.
Care to find out how many Idaho state employees are making more than $70,000 per year? You can find that too.
The new component is the local component, which allows you to dive into county, city and school board data like never before.
For example, you can compare budgets of your county, and see where spending has increased or decreased. This is an example from Ada County.
A plethora of city and school data is also available.
Having all of this data available at your fingerprints is an enormous victory for the citizens of Idaho. Controller Woolf and his staff deserve major kudos.