When government officials talk about the state’s “budget,” they are only referring to the funding enumerated in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for that specific year. The GAA Budget is only the amount voted on by the legislature and signed by the Governor.  It’s not Total Spending.  The amount in the GAA Budget is only 55% of Total Spending.  The other 45% is off-budget – spending that is not up for public discussion, or even mentioned by most Beacon Hill politicians.

The only place the public can currently see the numbers for Total Spending is in a large document released every year called the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the CAFR.  For the Fiscal Year 2009 (FY2009), which ended last June, the CAFR is 203 pages long and difficult to navigate.

If you can get past the first 163 pages of the CAFR – pages filled with dense financial text and interesting but financially-irrelevant information about Massachusetts authors – if you can get past all of this and work your way to pages 164 and 165, you’ll find the past 10 years of Total Spending.

Using this information, I have charted the Total Spending of the last 10 years.  The chart above highlights the difference between the GAA Budget and Total Spending each year.

In the last year alone, Total Spending increased by $1 Billion.  When state government officials told us that there was a massive budget gap last year, and that budget cuts had to be made, they still increased Total Spending by $1 Billion.  How does cutting the budget equal spending $1,000,000,000 more?

The CAFR only breaks down state spending by department, in multi-million-dollar chunks.  It does not provide details on how each department spent the taxpayer’s money.  Last year, I submitted a request under the Open Records Act to gain access to this information, already available to state officials in the electronic data warehouse.  I was told that yes, I could have the information.  It would only take four months for them to provide it, at a cost to me of $6,000.  Four months to provide information that is already readily available to state employees?  $6,000 for data that can be transmitted electronically?

As State Auditor, I will have access to all this information.  Access to data on every financial transaction.  Massachusetts taxpayers shouldn’t have to wade through excessively long, mind-numbing documents to find only partial information.  The state is spending our money; they shouldn’t charge us to find out how it’s spent.  I will create an online Transparency Portal to give every citizen of Massachusetts free and easy access to all the data on state government spending.  With Kamal Jain in the State Auditor’s office, all of this information – every dollar, every dime – will be published online.

No other candidate for auditor, from either party, has pledged to open the books for you to see.  I won’t just tell you what’s going on, I’ll let you see it all for yourself.  That’s Total Transparency.