New Nonprofit Will Promote State Fiscal Transparency
April 2, 2013
MONTPELIER—The leaders of the Public Assets Institute and the Ethan Allen Institute announced today that they have formed a new nonprofit, Vermont Transparency, Inc., to advance their work to make state and local government fiscal information easily accessible to citizens.
The two organizations, who have distinctly different views on the role of government but agree that government should be transparent to citizens, began working together in 2008 and maintain a jointly operated website, vttransparency.org. The site makes publicly available budget and tax information free and easy to find and use.
“The Vermont Transparency web site has been a nationally unique example of a joint effort between two organizations with quite different principles of public policy,” said Ethan Allen Institute vice-president John McClaughry. “This new organization builds upon a partnership that has worked out very well.”
The website is the only place to find 20 years of complete budget data. It is also the only site with a searchable database of payments to vendors doing business with the state. State employee compensation back to 2009, revenue figures, links to district school data, and links to municipal websites also are available at vttransparency.org.
The fact that the two organizations have differing views on public policy enhances the credibility of the information provided at vttransparency.org. “We have a strict no-bias policy for the tax and budget information that is put on the site and how it is described. Users can be confident this information is not slanted by one point of view or another,” Public Assets Institute president Paul Cillo noted.
The new nonprofit will take over the operation of the website and provide individuals, businesses, and organizations the opportunity to make financial contributions to help with the work of making Vermont fiscal information transparent to citizens.
Public Assets Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes sound state budget and tax policies that benefit all Vermonters. More information at www.publicassets.org
Ethan Allen Institute is Vermont’s independent, nonpartisan, free-market-oriented public policy think tank built upon a libertarian, decentralist, community-based philosophy. More information at www.ethanallen.org
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