Financial Transparency Platforms Give Citizens Insight into Municipal Spending

My last post on municipal transparency noted that most, if not all, Massachusetts cities and towns post financial information such as annual budgets on their websites. Budgets help residents understand how their municipality plans to spend their tax money, but circumstances may change during the fiscal year and budget modifications often occur. Most of us don’t learn of these changes until the next year’s financial statement is posted, showing the actual amounts spent over the previous year.

For residents, tracking municipal expenditures online can increase their engagement with local government. It can also help them better understand the scale and scope of the work involved in running a municipality.

For city and town officials, providing this extra layer of transparency builds trust and enhances communication between themselves and the communities they serve. 

OpenCheck, one of several financial transparency platforms, can help.

What is OpenCheck?

OpenCheck LLC is a local company that offers a software platform tailored to municipalities. The interface is easy to navigate and gives users ready access to how and where tax dollars are being spent. Helping local governments with fiscal transparency is its primary mission.

While researching this subject, I ran across some Western Massachusetts municipalities featuring the OpenCheck system: Northampton, Chicopee, and East Longmeadow. I decided to give the fiscal transparency section of Northampton’s website a spin.

Clicking on the “Open Checkbook” link brought me to a user-friendly page with dropdown boxes that allowed filtering the results by Category, Department, and Date. A handy pie chart to the right of these options displayed the chosen department’s spending with each vendor. Mousing over each section identifies the dollar amount spent and its corresponding percentage of the total budget. 

Northampton’s OpenCheck webpage is up-to-date, with the latest entries dated March 1, 2024, when I visited on March 11, 2024. The detail of this publicly available information is amazing. Not only are departments and vendors identified and transactions given a brief description, but the check amounts and numbers are listed for each entry. Users can also export the data if they choose.

Compared with simply reviewing the annual expenditure totals listed in year-end reports, the OpenCheckbook allows residents as well as town officials to drill down into municipal spending and track how and where their tax dollars are being spent.

A Brief Chat with Mike Olkin of OpenCheck LLC

Wanting to learn more, a friend and I spoke with Mike Olkin, founding partner of OpenCheck LLC. Mike gave us an overview of the platform and answered our questions. Here are the highlights of our conversation.

Q.: Does OpenCheck showcase only municipal expenditures or does it include revenues, too?

A.: The platform shows only expenditures (accounts payable). For municipalities wanting accounts receivable and/or open budgeting capabilities, other providers such as OpenGov and ClearGov can be used.

Q.: How many cities and towns are currently using your product?

A.: We serve the municipalities of Arlington, Chicopee, East Longmeadow, Gardner, Leominster, Northampton, Oxford, and Wakefield.

Q.: What are the benefits of using OpenCheck for municipalities? What reasons do they give for their interest in purchasing your product? 

A.: They see transparency and trust building with the public as primary motivators. The platform also increases accountability among those making and carrying out procurement decisions. Saving staff time is another benefit. With a user-friendly interface, staff outside the finance department who may need this information can access it easily and quickly. Public records requests regarding finances decrease as citizens find their questions answered with a few mouse clicks.

Q.: What are the steps to set up an account with OpenCheck?

A.: The platform is customized to each municipality. The categories and departments, for example, are chosen by the customer. During account setup, we work with the municipality to create a weekly report that is automatically uploaded to the server and stored in the cloud. This keeps the data fresh.

Q.: Are there specific types of municipal finance software needed to use your platform?

A.: We have worked with both VADAR and Munis, but we can adapt to any system.

Q.: Can you give an estimate of what such a platform would cost for the town of Shutesbury?

A.: Pricing is correlated with population size. A rough estimate of pricing for Shutesbury would be around $6,000 for the initial setup and an annual maintenance fee of about $1,200.

For municipalities that want to offer financial transparency and foster trust and confidence between local government and the public, OpenCheck’s platform offers a user-friendly and affordable solution. 

Checkbook image courtesy of ClipArt Library

How Transparent is Your Local Government?

Government transparency is evolving as the internet makes sharing information simpler and more user-friendly. Local government, in particular, has become more open and accountable as residents can now explore the websites of all 351 Massachusetts municipalities. 

Local government transparency has come a long way since 2010, the last year that Common Cause Massachusetts rated municipal websites. Back then, the organization awarded its “e-Government Award” to 180 municipalities that published its chief executive body’s meeting minutes and agendas, as well as town budgets, bylaws, and town meeting warrants (if applicable). Posting additional information such as minutes and agendas of other boards and committees earned a city or town extra accolades. The Town of Shutesbury did not make the list in 2010.

These days, posting this type of information on municipal websites is commonplace. Less often, municipalities follow the letter of Massachusetts law concerning the types of data the public has a right to access on their city or town’s website. 

Public Records Law Requirements

The most recent Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law lists (on pages 9 and 65) several categories of records that should be posted on state agency and municipal websites. These items include:

• Final opinions, decisions, orders, and votes from proceedings;

• Annual reports;

• Notices of hearings;

• Winning bids for public contracts;

• Awards of federal, state, and municipal government grants;

• Minutes of open meetings;

• Budgets;

• Any other information deemed important and appropriate by the municipality.

This sounds like a lot of information to keep up with, but looking closely shows that much of this data is already commonplace on most municipal websites. A quick internet search of Massachusetts cities and towns will produce pages of results showing that annual reports are listed on most, if not all, municipal websites. The same is true of meeting and hearing notices, minutes of open meetings, and budgets. 

Where some municipalities are less compliant is in the following areas:  (1.) decisions and votes of the governing body (the law doesn’t speak to which decisions, votes and orders must be published); (2.) bid documents for public contracts; and (3.) a list of grants received from federal, state, or local sources.

Why are These Postings Important?

Posting relevant votes of bodies like the Select Board and Finance Committee conspicuously on a town’s website gets important information out to the public quickly and efficiently. This would be especially helpful if such votes were posted before approval and publication of meeting minutes (a sometimes lengthy process), though the law doesn’t speak to that issue. Many residents don’t have time to attend all municipal meetings and a “cheat sheet” on a town’s homepage would keep citizens informed.

Listing successful bids demonstrates financial transparency and informs citizens about significant local projects. Taxpayers have a right to know how and why public money is being spent. Publishing this information gives residents a level of detail they are unlikely to obtain from live meetings or meeting minutes.

Publishing grants received by the city or town should be a no-brainer.  Doing so showcases the hard work performed by town officials to bring extra funds into municipal coffers. It is wonderful public relations for cities and towns that has no downside whatsoever.

How Local Websites Stack Up

I checked Shutesbury and a few other local websites to see how common it is to post votes and decisions, successful bid documents, and grants received by the city or town. If not immediately apparent, I checked the site index or searched the website to unearth these postings.

Shutesbury does not list any of the above postings on its website.

Looking at our neighbors of similar population size, Wendell also had none of the above postings. 

Leverett, however, had votes and decisions parsed from board and committee meeting minutes available on its homepage. I used the search function to locate bids, which brought up snippets of minutes from various town committees. Sometimes a text box would follow these snippets and mention a motion made that involved a bid or RFP. There is no specific listing of bids or grants received by Leverett.

 Pelham does not list votes and decisions on their website. I located a “Grants” page under the “About Pelham” tab. A “Procurement” page is also available though it simply states, “Nothing at this time.”

The Erving website does not list votes and decisions. However, at the top of the homepage is an “Open Bids” tab that can be used to find all open and closed bids from 2018 to the present. I had to dig a bit, but found a link to a page called, “Grant Information” on the “Administration and Select Board” page that lists all grants from Fiscal Year 2022 to the present.

Can our small towns do better at fulfilling the posting requirements of the MA Public Records Law? Yes. While a quick internet search shows that bid and grant listings are more common on the websites of cities and large towns, small towns can easily add this information to their websites. Keeping up should be relatively simple since there are fewer items to post in each category in smaller towns like Shutesbury. Making this information available to the public on a website will reduce town employee time spent responding to public records requests.

Meanwhile, interested citizens can access CommBuys, Massachusetts’ procurement system, to search for available and past bids in any city or town.

Government Transparency Upon Request: Using the Massachusetts Public Records Law

The investigation into Title IX violations within the Amherst-Pelham Regional Public School system (ARPS) revealed ugly truths about the behavior of some school staff toward transgender and non-binary students as well as school officials’ failure to address complaints. 

If not for an information request and subsequent appeal under the state’s Public Records Law by Scott Merzbach of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Title IX reports commissioned by the school district would not have been made public. The feeling expressed by the ARPS Interim Superintendent at the September 19, 2023, joint meeting of the Regional, Pelham, and Union 26 School Committees was that the School Committees and the public “will have to trust” that school officials with access to the reports “are taking appropriate actions.”

The Gazette published an article on November 17, 2023, that summarized highlights of the reports and links to the redacted reports. I read portions of three of the five reports, and the behavior described is shocking.

The Public’s Right to Know

In the determination letter that forced the ARPS School District to release the reports requested by Mr. Merzbach, Supervisor of Records Manza Arthur observes that the Public Records Law presumes that “all governmental records are public records” unless covered by a statutory exemption. In this case, the District cited Exemption (c) [MGL c.4, §7(26)(c)], which pertains to personal privacy, as the reason for non-disclosure.

Ms. Arthur noted that issues of privacy must be weighed against the public interest in “knowing whether public servants are carrying out their duties in a law-abiding and efficient manner”. She decided that in this case, the District had not proven that the records contained the level of personal details that would prevent disclosure, and ordered the release of the reports.

The Strengths and Shortcomings of the MA Public Records Law

The Massachusetts Public Records Law is an important and useful tool to enforce state and local government transparency, yet it is not widely understood. This Guide is an excellent source of information on the Law, and the Secretary of State’s website provides links to helpful features such as the Public Records Request/Appeals Database.

The law has been criticized as having no mechanism for enforcement through the Public Records Division. If a public entity refuses or ignores an order to comply with a citizen's request, only the courts or the Attorney General might provide relief. Court costs will be reimbursed only if the aggrieved citizen wins their court case, and the chances of the Attorney General reviewing such cases are low. The long list of exemptions from the law can also limit the public’s access. 

This differs considerably from the Open Meeting Law, administered through the Attorney General’s Open Government Division. Enforcement actions include fines of up to $1,000 for intentional offenses, compulsory training for offenders, and nullification of actions taken during meetings  [G.L. c. 30A, §23(c)].

As the ARPS example shows, a public entity that describes itself as open and transparent will likely respond to a disclosure order. For any entity,  the publicizing of such a refusal would be a public relations nightmare. The communication options open to aggrieved citizens who meet with such defiance are many and would cause considerable embarrassment for the public agent foolish enough to flout the law.

Though the list of exemptions to the Public Records Law can be daunting, the ARPS Title IX case shows that a public entity’s claim to a statutory exemption does not always hold up under the scrutiny of the appeal process. Requesters who have good reason to believe their claim to access is valid should be persistent. 

The appeals process can also be used successfully when a records request is ignored or when the Public Records Division closes the case with no information having been dispersed to the requester. 

In my own experience,  an appeal usually results in a quick response to the original request. If the records released are unsatisfactory, the requester can appeal again within 90 days.

Often, any email response to a requester of public records will trigger a closure of the case by the state–even if no information was released. This is a quirk in the system that confused me at first. After discussing the issue with an attorney at the Public Records Division, I was advised to open an appeal. Sometimes it takes multiple appeals to secure the desired information, so persistence is key. 

Making Government Accountable

The Public Records Law of today is more streamlined for requesters thanks to reforms signed into law in 2016, which took effect on January 1, 2017. The reforms included:

1. Requiring public entities to create one or more Records Access Officers (RAO) to reduce confusion regarding with whom to file a request;

2. Timelines for public entities to fulfill requests;

3. Limits on fees public entities can charge requesters for producing paper records;

4. Making electronic records, when available, the preferred format for fulfilling records requests;

5. For citizens who take their cases to court and win, the ability of the court to assess punitive damages and attorney’s fees.

RAOs help the state keep track of public records requests through a log noting the details of each request. The creation of an RAO position does not mean that other employees in possession of public records cannot also release them to the public–though it would be good form to relay this release of information to the RAO so that the request may be added to the logbook. Once the requester obtains the public record, they are free to share it in any way they wish.

Despite its limitations, the Public Records Law supports open government and the public’s right to stay apprised of how their elected and appointed officials are carrying out their public duties. We all should be familiar with the law, and use it to its full potential.

Economy Wreaks Havoc on Amherst Construction Projects–Is Shutesbury Next?

Jones Library, Amherst MA
August 13, 2010
Photo Credit: John Phelan

A perfect storm of rising construction costs, soaring interest rates, and high inflation has forced neighboring Amherst to rethink its ambitious construction agenda as cost estimates on four projects head skyward.

As media outlets Amherst Indy and the Amherst Bulletin have reported, a whopping $40 million has been added to the bottom-line number for four construction projects: the Fort River Elementary School, a new Department of Public Works, a new Fire Station, and the renovation of the Jones Library. 

$40 million represents a 44% increase over the original four-project total of $90.8 million.

Shutesbury has its own roster of construction projects: installing a new 30,000+ square foot asphalt roof on the Shutesbury Elementary School (SES); replacing the Locks Pond Road culvert; building a new library; and the as-yet-unknown costs of remediating contamination on Lot O-32, the site of the proposed library. 

Estimates vs. Actual Costs

There is little doubt that Shutesbury will have to deal with the same problems as Amherst since construction costs are still trending upwards. 

Applying an increase of 44% to the culvert, school roof, and library project estimates (there are no estimates yet on Lot O-32 remediation costs), may supply a more realistic approximation of costs once the design is complete on the roof and library projects as well as suggest cost increases on the culvert project.

New Library: 5,490 Square Feet

Using information provided by the Small Library Pilot Project page on Shutesbury’s MN Spear Memorial Library website, the last estimate procured by the Trustees came to $6.3 million. Shutesbury’s portion of that amount is $2,063,571 or 38%.  We have saved  $890,700 in cash and voted to borrow $1.17 million. 

$6,300,000 ✕ 1.44 = $9,072,000 

$9,072,000 ✕ 0.38 (our portion of library costs) = $3,447,360

Subtracting town investments and the amount we will borrow for this project, the increase is quite hefty:

$3,447,360 - ($890,700 + $1,172,871) = $1,383,789

In this scenario, the town will have to come up with another $1.4 million to keep the library project on course. As with Amherst, S. Deerfield, and other communities, cutting the construction budget will be difficult since the grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners does not allow the flexibility of adjusting the scope of work–such as reducing the square footage or trimming library programs–to meet municipalities’ budget requirements. 

For Shutesbury, transferring more money from savings is unlikely since cash reserves were reduced by 58% by 2022 Annual Town Meeting votes and a promised set-aside of funds to replace the SES roof.

Amherst has not yet voted on its own debt exclusion for its slate of projects and so may still adjust its borrowing needs. Because Shutesbury voted for a debt-excluded amount of nearly $1.2 million at the end of June, a big jump in costs will be a problem. 

According to the MA Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services, the ability of municipalities to add to a voter-authorized debt exclusion in order to cover cost increases is limited. Unless it is a “modest amount attributable to inflation, new regulatory requirements or minor project changes”, municipalities must apply to the Division of Local Services Director of Accounts to obtain permission to increase the original borrowing amount. Otherwise, another debt exclusion override vote will be required.

Locks Pond Road Culvert Project

Shutesbury’s 2021 Annual Town Meeting voted to approve a total of $1.3 million in funding to replace the culvert on Locks Pond Road, near Lake Wyola:

Article 5. A motion was made and seconded for the Town to vote to fund the construction of a replacement culvert at Locks Pond Rd and Lake Dr, near the dam by borrowing up to $201,007, transferring $250,000 from capital stabilization and using the remaining funds of the Municipal Small Bridge grant for a total of up to $801,007. 

Applying a 44% increase to this job, which is likely not going to begin until the fall of 2023, yields an increase of $550,886 the town may need to raise or borrow to complete this project next year.

$1,252,014  ✕  1.44 = $1,802,900

But wait, there’s more! In addition, taxpayers may have to pay moving and/or storage fees to overwinter the yet-to-be-installed culverts unless appropriate town-owned space is found for this purpose.

SES Roof Replacement: 30,304 Square Feet

Voters approved $60,000 to pay for a design for the SES roof replacement at Annual Town Meeting this year, though there is no evidence this study is underway. The plan, as described by the Town Administrator on the floor of town meeting, was to obtain a more precise cost for the roof replacement project before calling a Special Town Meeting in the fall to transfer funds to do the job.

In the absence of a design, I will use the amount the Finance Committee estimated in their pre-Town Meeting Budget Report to perform the calculations.

$750,000 (Finance Committee estimate) ✕ 1.44 = $1,080,000

This would require Shutesbury to raise or borrow an additional $330,000.

This estimate may be low since there was no official cost estimate performed on the school roof. The gymnasium roof, at 4582 square feet, represents only 15% of the much larger asphalt area and cost $254,100 to replace. 

The asphalt roof project has been postponed since at least 2014, and the roof has continued to leak despite yearly patches administered by the former Town Buildings Committee. No doubt the passage of time and continual water damage will present added challenges to the replacement job, driving costs higher still.

The town has applied, for the sixth time, to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), for a grant to replace the SES roof. At Town Meeting this year, the Town Administrator inferred that Shutesbury’s chances of procuring a grant were better than ever this year, presumably due to the involvement of state Representative Natalie Blais.

In perusing the town’s 2022 Statement of Interest to the MSBA (available from the Town Clerk), I noticed that despite a line in the asphalt shingle section of the form stating, “We are no longer seeking repair of the gym section of the elementary school roof”, the town goes on to apply for a grant for the gym section in addition to the asphalt section of the roof anyway. This is no doubt a mistake made by town officials–hopefully, not a fatal one.

If the grant process fails again, the town will have to come up with funds to fix the roof. This might mean another round of borrowing. The alternative is to delay the roof project for another year. Unless the town moves quickly to obtain the design, that may happen anyway.

Although this is just an exercise based on the experiences of Amherst, it is worth thinking about since we might find ourselves in a similar situation. 

What do you think Shutesbury will do if large increases in its construction project estimates occur? 

1. The town will again postpone the SES roof project in the event we once again fail to secure a grant from the MSBA; 

2. The town will postpone the culvert job another year;

3. Voters will decide cost overruns outweigh the desire and need for a new library;

4. Taxpayers will vote to borrow approximately $2,264,675, to complete all these projects.

Weigh in here: https://nextdoor.com/p/PsDGf6_YfDTt?utm_source=share&extras=NzAyNTE2Ng%3D%3D