New portal helps track tax spending in Westfield
WESTFIELD, Ind. (WISH) — The city of Westfield has launched a financial transparency portal aimed at sharing the city’s tax use with city residents.
The interactive website called OpenGov is already employed by the cities of Fishers, Valparaiso and Greenwood. Tammy Havard, financial strategist for the city of Westfield, said the cities recommended the tool to Westfield and her city voluntarily chose to use OpenGov to help them report to the public.
“It’s not necessarily more transparency,” Havard said. “Our data is already published online to the state, so the reporting requirements have been met. So, this is in addition to give the residents and anyone that’s interested more information in a useable format.”
OpenGov is primarily a website where a user can click through financial reports in pie charts, bar graphs and line charts from the past few years. Anyone can log in and see, for example, how much the city received in property taxes in 2016, how much money the city spent on Grand Park in 2017, and how well the city matched its proposed 2015 budget.
“Westfield is growing, and we want to be able to show where everybody’s money is going,” Havard said. “They can look at the data in whichever way that they want to, whether it be a pie chart or a bar chart or just the raw data itself .”
The data is admittedly straight from the city’s financial bookkeeping; there is no special audit conducted by OpenGov to ensure the city’s reporting accuracy.
“It’s our financial data and our financial data is our financial data, that’s what we report to the state annually,” she said. “This is on a monthly basis, so it’s giving more information on a more frequent basis in order to get that information out there.”
Havard said residents can help hold the city accountable for what they see in the graphs through a communication feature on OpenGov. She said she recommends citizens look through the various expenses and share their opinions with city leaders.
“Knowing how much we spend on dispatch service or knowing how much we spend on fire safety or a particular event, that will help people and help the city drive those conversations to where we should prioritize,” she said.
The portal is active on the city of Westfield’s website.
City officials added that OpenGov is a California-based company specializing in financial transparency.