F.I.T. Institute Rates States in Spending Transparency
MELBOURNE, FLA.—Some state governments are much better than others at
providing transparency in access to their spending data, according to
new results from the Activity-Based Total Accountability (ABTA)
Institute at Florida Institute of Technology. The
institute was founded in 2008 with a Florida Department of Education
grant that received additional funding in 2011 with a U.S. Small
Business Administration grant. The ABTA Institute mission is to provide
and promote simplified accountability measures and
cost/performance comparisons for effective decision making by
government leaders.
Based on website analyses, all 50 states earn A to F grades on the institute’s report card at
http://abta.fit.edu/report_
“This effort creates transparency in government spending to serve the
taxpayer,” says ABTA Institute Director Deborah Sater Carstens, an
associate professor of information systems in the Nathan M. Bisk College
of Business. She adds, “Accountability in government
is achieved only when total costs are considered in light of all
activities performed by agencies. To successfully track total costs
requires a standard system of measurement.”
The first ABTA Institute effort drew its data from the spending
documents of all 50 states for a variety of departments and sectors. The
data resulted in ABTA tables, which include county-level tables for
many of the counties in each state. When available,
fixed capital outlays, full time equivalent and unit costs are listed.
Also available are expenditure reports; indicator reports, which offer a
detailed look at performance and benchmarking statistics; and tables of
local government expenditures that show
spending by county, city and organization. The links to these reports
and tables are at:
http://abta.fit.edu/data.
The ABTA Institute used its most recent SBA grant, $100,000 in 2011,
to perform a state report card analysis and to fund training videos,
which can be viewed on the ABTA website. The recent effort involved an
analysis using a checklist key to identify the
transparency of different states as well as the data presented from a
usability standpoint. This resulted in assigning points for the
supportability and navigation of each state’s online access. Grading was
based on a grade scale of 0 to a maximum of 100 points.
The videos explain what ABTA is, how ABTA unit costs are developed
and how to use ABTA to transform government. Video trainer Gary Van
Landingham said, "ABTA has the potential to help citizens and their
governments dramatically improve the efficiency of
public services, and I encourage them to use the resources on the
website to begin this process."
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