EDMOND —
During the most recent legislative session I was privileged to work on two major initiatives designed to open up Oklahoma government to the purview of taxpayers as has never before been possible.
One of these initiatives was Senate Bill 1759, which is commonly known as the Government 2.0 proposal. I authored this legislation with state Sen. Anthony Sykes. This bill contained a series of transparency initiatives, including the codification of what I believe is the first comprehensive state-level Government 2.0 plan in the nation. In the future I intend to write articles about this bill that will describe the implications of the changes and ways this will allow you to hold state government responsible.
The other initiative was House Bill 3422, which was authored by Rep. Ken Miller and Sen. Clark Jolley. The plan is known as the Open Books 2.0 proposal and was requested by Miller and the Oklahomans for Responsible Government group. OFRG routinely utilizes Web-based reporting to conduct studies that help document how accountable various government entities are. The individuals at OFGR are becoming experienced in using Web-based transparency platforms and noticed that Oklahoma’s open books policies (the policy by which state government must place expenses online) was falling behind that of other states.
Current Oklahoma law does not require all state expenditures to be placed online and the expenditures are not easily searchable. This makes it difficult for those who want to find out where state government is spending money.
I was honored to work with OFRG, Miller and Jolley and help develop the transparency criteria that eventually were placed into the new law. HB 3422 will require not only that all state government purchases be placed online, but also will ensure that those expenditures are searchable by name.
No longer will taxpayers be forced to scroll through page after page of expenditures in order to find the name of an individual or company who is receiving a government check. Now, taxpayers will be able to search by name and can quickly find out how much that entity is receiving.
The spend data also will be available for export in standardized formats so that the data can be downloaded and analyzed. This will enable third party organizations representing taxpayers to perform complex analysis of government spending. In addition, the data will be archived and kept on file so that not only will documentation of the expenditures remain open to the public, but long-term spending trends can be analyzed as well.
I very much enjoyed being able to help with this legislation and believe the implications of these reforms will be extremely far reaching in deterring inappropriate government spending. In a future update I will write about some of the exciting tax-credit transparency language that also will go into law as a result of House Bill 3422.
REP. JASON MURPHEY, R-Guthrie, represents House District 31, which encompasses all of Logan County and a portion of northern Edmond. He may be reached via e-mail at jason.murphey@okhouse.gov.
Opinion
Open Books 2.0 will have far-reaching impact
- Opinion
-
-
It takes a dad as well as a mom
Orlando Shaw earned his 15 minutes of fame with a dubious distinction: fathering 22 children with 14 women. The Nashville man’s story made news when the mothers of his children sued for child support.
-
Excuses for data sweep sound hollow
Perhaps 2013 will go down as the year privacy and civil liberties became too inconvenient for government. Listening to assorted officials defend massive programs that scoop up vast amounts of data certainly gives that impression.
-
I pay property taxes ... please fix my road
Imagine paying thousands of dollars every year in property taxes and at the same time watching your roads literally crumble under the strain of increasing traffic. Unfortunately, some won’t have to imagine this because I’ve just described your reality.
Maybe you have even asked your County Commissioner why property tax money isn’t being used to maintain your road. He probably responded, “Almost all of your property tax money goes to public schools. Only about 15 percent goes to the county and most of that is not for roads.” -
Vision 2020 conference loaded with speakers
I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer — playing in the water, grilling, enjoying time with family; maybe preparing for vacation. But for Oklahoma educators, I hope your plans include a trip to Oklahoma City, July 9-11 to attend the State Department of Education’s Vision 2020 professional development conference.
The conference is free to all Oklahoma educators. -
The Oklahoma Standard
The “Oklahoma Standard” was a term coined during our state’s response to the tragedy of April 19, 1995. The connotation has many layers: the standard of trained first responders, the standard of non-trained first responders (neighbors helping neighbors), the standard of our faith community, the standard of welcoming out of state relief workers that arrived to help. In short, meeting the need and answering the call without reservation or inhibition.
-
The Mankato, Minn., Free Press: Stop gridlock on farm bill
The Mankato, Minn., Free Press: Stop gridlock
on farm bill
With a hopeful sound of gridlock cracking, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that he will vote for the House farm bill even though he has “concerns.” He reasons that “doing nothing means we get no changes in the nutrition programs.”
He may be merely pragmatic but we’ll take it. Rural Republicans are tired of the delays and want the five-year subsidy measure enacted. -
Crazy Kim and the Tippy Twos
Kim Jong Un certainly seems crazy. But sound mind isn’t a requirement for predictable action. Tyrants often mask steady goals with wild behavior. One need only think of world pests like Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein to realize entire regions can be thrust into unwanted global crises.
Like Castro and Saddam, Kim Jong Un has made clear he’s dedicated to expanding his ability to harm America and her allies. The difference is, he has a nuclear capability, not a borrowed or boasted one. North Korea has a proven record of long-range missile development that could ultimately hit the American mainland. -
Don’t blame the President; it’s us
June 17 marks the 41st anniversary of the second Watergate break-in. This is a good time to take a look back and reflect on what can happen when a corrupt administration throws a protective cloak around the misbehavior of a gang of unscrupulous cheats, liars and crooks.
On the morning of June 18, 1972, millions of us were unaware of the festering corruption that would ultimately rot our confidence in the president. We did not know that his administration was using the FBI as a tool to wiretap telephones of reporters regarded as unfriendly to the White House. We were oblivious to the fact the administration encouraged the IRS to audit media representatives whose reporting criticized the president. -
2 bills aid Oklahoma students
I recently attended two ceremonial bill signings at the State Capitol to celebrate legislation I feel is of vital importance to Oklahomans.
-
Time to roll back the Patriot Act
It’s time. It’s time for President Obama to live up to his own words. It’s time for Congress to do its job. It’s time to contract the ever-expanding national security state. And it’s time to roll back the Patriot Act. In Washington, elected officials are circling the wagons. The Obama administration claims that its Internet and telephone surveillance programs are legal; the ones we know about, indeed, are. But just because something is legal and can be done does that mean that it should remain so and continue to be done? No. Laws are made and unmade all the time. And the argument that vast, dragnet-style surveillance has stopped terrorists at the lamentable expense of privacy is exactly the same argument that the Bush administration made about torture: Better to sacrifice our principles and a few people in the hope of saving many.
- More Opinion Headlines
-
It takes a dad as well as a mom
