State Treasurer Adds Historical State Spending Information To Transparency Portal

State Treasurer Joe Torsella Tuesday announced the PA Treasury has continued to increase capabilities to the Transparency Portal which now includes more historical expenditure data.

“Pennsylvania’s state government belongs to the citizens it serves, and they deserve the chance to check where every dollar goes,” said Torsella. “Every time we grow the capabilities of the Transparency Portal, we grow the capabilities of citizens to hold their government accountable. That’s an important tool in restoring the faith that government can and should work for our families, and not for insiders.”

With these updates, Pennsylvanians will now have the ability to view historical expenditure levels going back to 2014 by both fiscal year and year-to-date.

Other enhancements include: general fund balance comparison with previous fiscal year on the home page, ability to change graph types, and asset allocation information for Treasury investment pools.

Treasurer Torsella has led the transparency effort by creating Treasury’s Transparency Portal shortly after taking office. The launch of Phase 1 provided taxpayers with a first-in-the-nation ability to track the general fund balance in real time.

In June 2017, Treasurer Torsella unveiled Phase 2  giving expanded access by offering the ability to compare the past three years of expenditures at the fund, department, and appropriation levels.

Earlier this year, Phase 3 was announced providing Pennsylvanians with the ability to evaluate the trend lines for the General Fund balance and the General Obligation bond for the past 10 years.

Users can also view the historical cash balances for every fund and compare that data for the past three fiscal years, and view the expenditures for every department, fund, and appropriation.

Phase 3 also provides the ability to generate and export data in multiple formats, so that accurate information is presented in a neutral form.

The Pennsylvania Treasury has received three awards for the Transparency Portal, including global recognition as a 2018 CIO 100 award recipient.