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City Puts Checkbook Online For All To See

WAMC

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its largest cities have for several years now featured so-called “open checkbooks” on their websites.  Some smaller cities are now joining the movement to make public information about how taxpayer money is spent just a few mouse clicks away

The Chicopee City Treasurer Marie Laflamme Tuesday announced the launch of the “open checkbook” link on thecity’s website.  Clicking on it leads to an easily searchable registry of every payment the city treasurer’s office has made in the current fiscal year and last year.

" This initiative will allow the citizens of Chicopee to see why, where and how much we pay each indivitual whether it is an employee or a vendor."

 Laflamme, who is in the second year of her first term as city treasurer, said it was a campaign promise to create the “open checkbook.”

" We are excited about it. The bottom line it is fiscal transparency," she said.

The new public website for the Chicopee treasurer’s office includes graphs and pie charts that breakdown into broad categories how the city’s $170 million annual budget is spent. Users can search by city department, and an alphabetized list of vendors.   The city payroll is also searchable by employee name.

Laflamme said the information will be updated weekly.

Chicopee Mayor Richard Kos said he was proud of the “open checkbook.”  He praised the work to create it done by the offices of the city treasurer and the auditor along with the city’s information technology department.

The project cost about $15,000 and was paid for out of a state grant.  Kos said Chicopee was one of five cities awarded a Community Innovation Challenge Grant to put details of municipal finances online.

Kos said a larger project is underway to completely overhaul the city’s website, which he said currently lacks features the public has come to expect on the internet.

" You will be seeing a new webpage in the next three-four months.  It has been funded and we are in the process now of reviewing designs," Kos said.

The Massachusetts State Treasurer’s office has had its checkbook on line for public access since 2011.   The cities of Boston, Worcester, and Springfield all have websites where the public can keep tabs on municipal spending.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.
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