The Yankee Institute, the premier conservative-libertarian think tank in Connecticut, has provided a new tool – a web Sherlock Holmes that allows political watchdogs to monitor spending in the state – that will make it less possible for entrenched politicians to fool all the people all the time.
The website, titled appropriately CTSunlight.org, is “an electronic tool constructed by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy – so that the citizens of Connecticut can look at every line item of state government spending and discover how OUR tax dollars are being spent by the people in Hartford.”
The site provides three windows – Payroll, Pensions, and Checks to Businesses & People – that allows concerned citizens, reporters and politicians to view every dollar spent by state taxing authorities in Connecticut.
And, yes, you can find out how much Joe Blow, now retired from Three Rivers Community College, makes per year in his retirement pension, or how much Jim Amann (“position not disclosed”) makes in annual salary.
Happy hunting, and have fun. They're YOUR tax dollars.
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excellent Don !!!!!!
ReplyDeleteDon, is this project paid for by the Sunlight Foundation?
ReplyDeleteAnd how can you argue that all those State employees are over-paid?
>>And how can you argue that all those State employees are over-paid?
ReplyDeleteAnyone can certainly argue that some of them are seriously over-paid.
We are talking about the Lt. Gov's driver, aren't we?
ReplyDeleteAnd someone needs to fix the damn clock. We're on Pacific Standard Time.
I love this site -- I've already done some fun research with it. It's actually a political tool, useful for bashing union-boosters.
ReplyDeleteScoopie???
Paul said...(I'm still figuring out how to post here, hence the "anonymous said")
ReplyDeleteNot on this thread but people have been getting too hung up on donuts and spring water. This is interesting and potentially valuable information but really it's just a place to start. At this point the response in the media has been fairly opportunistic and shallow. It will be interesting what happens in the next few days or weeks if anything. It will take a lot of time and tedious work to produce anything earthshaking. Downloading it and converting it to your favorite data software is a place to start. For instance, match the names of the rainmaking businesses in the "checks" list to the Sec. of State's Concord database. Take the names of the principles in the business and match them to political contribution data. Of course there's no database of friend and family of elected officials and appointees so that's where the real detective work begins. Matching the payroll list to campaign contributions in fun too.