CFO Info is a website developed by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer that allows people to access information on spending by DC government agencies on programs and services. The site presents a valuable opportunity not only to improve DC’s budget transparency, but also to make budget information easily accessible to the general public.
But while CFO Info is off to a promising start, it could be greatly improved by the CFO by making the site more user-friendly and adding additional spending details.
As an online source of information, CFO Info does not have the space constraints that published budget books have. This means greater spending detail can be placed online. The CFO’s office has used the CFO Info site to expand the information available in some areas, particularly on expenditures of “special purpose” funds ‘ funds financed by fees and fines and dedicated to specified uses ‘ and the capital budget, giving users up-to-date progress on spending on capital projects.
But in other areas, CFO Info falls short of its full potential. By adding spending detail in two key ways, CFO Info could improve the transparency of these funds:
- Greater spending detail at the activity level. Currently, the DC budget allows users to see how DC government agencies have combined local, federal, and other funds to support services, but only at a high level ‘ the major divisions within each agency. This information is not available at the budget’s most detailed level ‘ the “activity” level ‘ where most programs and services that DC residents use are found. The budget does not show, for example, local and federal funding for energy assistance over time, so it is not clear if the program’s funding decline in recent years is due to a drop in local or federal funds, or both. Adding spending detail at the activity level to CFO Info would allow users to track spending at the activity level, by funding type, over time.
- Greater detail on expenditures of federal funds. Many agencies, like the Department of Health, rely heavily on federal dollars to deliver critical services to DC residents. Yet the DC budget currently provides little information on how specific federal funds are spent. The budget includes a list of federal grants the agency is expected to receive in the coming year, but it does not show actual amounts of specific federal sources spent in prior years, and it does not connect specific federal grants to particular programs and services. For example, the FY 2012 budget shows that the “˜Perinatal and Infant Health’ program, within the Department of Health, will receive $5.8 million in federal funds, but it does not indicate which federal grants will fund this program in 2012 or which federal grants supported the program in prior years.
CFO Info already has addressed a similar issue with special purpose funds. CFO Info could also provide similar information for federal funds ‘ spending detail that would allow users to see how particular federal grants were spent on specific programs and activities.
The CFO Info website also could be made more user-friendly. In many areas of the website, it is difficult to tell how to get from one area to another and a lack of a glossary or description of terms could make it hard for some users to really understand what they’re looking at. The following changes could help improve CFO Info’s overall user-friendliness:
- Easier, and consistent navigation within CFO Info. Right now, navigation on every section of CFO is different, making it harder to determine how to navigate within the site. CFO Info could be made much more user-friendly by using consistent navigation throughout the site ‘ of all the different sections, the navigation in its “˜Financial Status Reports’ section is the easiest to use and it should be the model for the whole site.
- Include a glossary of terms. Many users may not know what terms like “pre-encumbrance” mean and/or they may not know what a particular division or activity is responsible for within an agency. Including a glossary of terms and descriptions of the main functions of each agency, divisions, and activity would help improve the user-friendliness of CFO Info.
CFO Info has the ability to be a one-stop shop website for DC’s financial information. If the CFO’s office can work to make the site more user-friendly and continue to add spending detail, the site could be a very useful tool ‘ from the DC resident wanting to know what has happened to his or her library’s funding to the most serious budget wonks ‘ who want to learn more about DC’s budget.
