Providence, RI - In his continuing efforts to promote open and honest government in the State of Rhode Island, Governor Lincoln D. Chafee today announced the second phase of his administration's Transparency and Accountability Initiative. The goal of the Initiative is to provide the public with an increased level of information regarding the operation and management of government, as well as ensuring the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars.
The second phase of the Rhode Island Transparency Portal, which was originally launched by Governor Chafee in January, delivers on the promise of making more data available to the public in an efficient manner and user-friendly format. The State of Rhode Island's Office of Digital Excellence has developed three main additions to the Portal: a replacement to the Open Government Checkbook with enhanced expenditures reporting and search capabilities; an initial release of Rhode Island state employee compensation data for Fiscal Year 2012 with guided search functionality; and reporting on the status of active loans from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC).
"This is another step forward in my administration's efforts to make available more and better information about the operation and management of state government," said Governor Chafee. "The people of Rhode Island deserve the opportunity to hold their government and their public officials accountable, and the Transparency Portal is an effort to better support that process. I firmly believe that greater openness and transparency will ultimately strengthen our citizens' faith in their government, bolster our national reputation, and increase our economic competitiveness."
Enhanced Expenditures Reporting and Search Capability
The latest release of the RI Transparency portal includes an extensive update on Expenditures reporting and transaction details. Users will now be able to search through state expenditures for the current fiscal year and the last three complete fiscal years, beginning with FY2010. The public will be able to search and review expenditures by fiscal category, agency, program, and payee. The new expenditures reporting interface makes it easy to aggregate data over fiscal periods by displaying top expenditures, as well as providing the search results available for download. The public will also be able to drill deeper into the data than before by pulling up line item transactions associated with each agency, program, or payee.
State Employee Compensation Data
The state has now made available the Payroll Data for Fiscal Year 2012, inclusive of all agencies in the Executive Branch, the Secretary of State, Treasury, Attorney General, and Lieutenant Governor's office. The public will now be able to search for compensation data by Last Name, Earning Type, Dollar Range, and Department or Agency. The compensation data is broken out by Employee First and Last Name, Department as of FY2012, Title as of FY2012, Regular Earnings, Overtime Earnings, Other Earnings (including holiday pay, health waiver, severance, allowances, road detail, CALEA, retro payments, and active duty), and Total Compensation. The search results for compensation data can also be sorted by multiple categories and downloaded as a CSV file for additional analysis.
RIEDC Loan Status
The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation has provided the current status of all active bonds, loans, and grants issued over multiple series years in six bond types. The bond types made available for searching are: Job Creation Guarantee Program, Renewable Energy Fund, RI Industrial Facilities Corporation, RI Industrial Recreational Building Authority, RI Science and Technology Advisory Council, and Small Business Loan Fund. Users of the RI Transparency Portal will be able to search for the details on these active loans by bond type and series year issued. A search of the Loan Status will display the Entity Name, Bond Type, Loan Amount, Outstanding Loan Amount, Last Payment Date, and Series Year.
Please visit http://www.transparency.ri.gov to explore the new features.