Mayor Garcetti Launches Interactive Website Detailing City Finances
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Mayor Eric Garcetti Wednesday unveiled an interactive website providing details about the city's finances and spending history.
The Open Budget Portal promises to let taxpayers know how their "dollars are being spent," and provides graphs marking trends, departmental revenue data and expenditures from 2009 to the current year.
The launch comes as Garcetti prepares to release his first budget as mayor next month.
"My new budget website gives residents a better way to see how their tax dollars are being collected and spent, making L.A. city government more transparent and accountable," he said in a statement.
Garcetti spokesman Jeff Millman told City News Service the site, which uses the cloud-based OpenGov Platform, cost $25,400 to produce.
It is meant to compliment the web tool ControlPanelLA, a searchable database of revenues and expenses launched late last year by Controller Ron Galperin with data dating back to 2011.
Officials say ControlPanelLA was designed to look at specific financial information, while Open Budget is best used for analyzing budgeting information and trends.
City officials are projecting a $242 million budget deficit for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Garcetti's office said he is using a "performance-based" budgeting model this year, making spending decisions based on how to best achieve desired results rather than simply adding or reducing spending to the previous year's budget.
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