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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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State gets B+ in transparency of spending

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OLYMPIA — A new report gives Washington state a B+ in how transparently it discloses government spending online.

The report, “Following the Money 2016: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data,” was released Wednesday. It comes from the Washington Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

The study gives Washington state credit for moving to include summary data and other information on some of the state’s largest tax exemptions on its transparency website.

But, “citizen watchdogs can’t analyze how a tax exemption granted to a corporation results in real value for ordinary Washingtonians,” according to a statement announcing the report.

“In 2016, when we can be checking anything in our personal finances on our cellphones, we think it’s important for taxpayers to have that information” also for their government, said Bruce Speight, executive director for WashPIRG Foundation.

The state has made “vast improvements” in its grade since 2010, according to Speight. But Washington doesn’t make the top 10 list in providing online access to its spending data.

There needs to be more spending detail on some government subsidies for economic development, and all that data should be downloadable, Speight said.

The state also should track whether companies are doing the things they said they’d do to get the subsidies, he added.

Those features were lacking in three state subsidy programs assessed by the report, including tax preferences for aerospace companies and a tax exemption for data centers.

In the report, a handful of states received an A+ grade, including Oregon, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Connecticut.

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