State rolls out Open Checkbook

$1.8m effort to open payroll, spending records to public

Massachusetts officials today unveiled a new $1.8 million website that allows the public to review and ask questions about most government expenditures, including payments to vendors and the salaries and pensions of state workers.

Jay Gonzalez, the state secretary of administration and finance, said the website takes Massachusetts from being one of the least transparent states in the nation in terms of finances to one of the most transparent. “It is about rebuilding trust in government,” he said.

The new website allows users to track state expenditures in real time and ask questions about them. The questions will be fielded by state employees who will take turns handling them. The website was scheduled to launch at 2 p.m. today, but did not go live until much later.

Treasurer Steven Grossman, who campaigned on a pledge to make government spending more open to the public, said the website includes most data from the state’s accounting system but emphasized that more will be added over time. He noted that many quasi-public authorities, such as the Massachusetts Port Authority and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, as well the MBTA and municipalities are not on the state’s accounting system and therefore are not included yet.

“We’re not everywhere we want to be,” Grossman said. “There will be a 2.0 and 3.0 to come.”