Wisconsin has gone from being one of the worst states for government spending transparency to one of the best, according to a new U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) report card released on Tuesday.
Just a year agon, PIRG gave Wisconsin an F for its public access to government spending data. In this year’s report, Wisconsin received an an A-minus. Bruce Speight, who heads the group’s Wisconsin chapter (WISPIRG), called it the largest improvement by any state in the country.
“This is our fifth annual report and over the last four years, we’ve hovered in the D or “Failing” range,” said Speight. “So this is the best score so far and a huge step forward in really giving the public more information about where our money’s going.”
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Driving the improvement was the state’s new Open Book Wisconsin website, run by the Department of Administration. The site lets people search state agency expenditures going back to 2008.
Department of Administration Deputy Secretary Chris Schoenherr says the goal is a more informed citizenry.
“I can’t say that every citizen, every day, is going to want to pull that data,” said Schoenherr. “But on any given day, it’s going to be incredibly important to at least one citizen. And by giving them that tool, I think we’ve taken the state a long ways.”
Schoenherr says the site averages about 850 visits per day.
The report card recommended a few places where Wisconsin could improve. For example, it says it’s still hard to download data on economic development subsidies from the semi-private Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.
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