I don’t live in Milwaukee County, so I’m not gasping right now. But, gasping or not, Milwaukee County residents have something the rest of us don’t. They have GASP.
GASP is the snappy acronym for CRG Network’s new Government Accountability in Spending Project. It’s an online database of information of Milwaukee County government’s finances. In the future, more local governments will go on the system. Right now, we can root around in the finances of this one county only. The search engine works like a breeze, and you can export the results of each search to a spreadsheet with an easy Export function.
CRG Network calls this “the ultimate in openness and transparency.†At crgnetwork.com it’s explained that “Scott Walker and the Milwaukee County stepped forward to be the first unit of Wisconsin government to commit†to this citizens’ resource. The project had funding help from the Sam Adams Foundation, National Taxpayers Union, and Citizens in Charge.
Hey, I’m affiliated with two of these outfits! So I guess I’m patting myself on the back.
But not really. The hard work was done by the county’s Information Management Services Division, Controller’s Office, and Department of Administration, with a lot of help from professional volunteers of the CRG Network.
If you want to see how a local government spends its billions, you can hardly do better than putting Milwaukee County onto your research agenda. Thanks to GASP.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.