Legislation would create website for public access to government accounting

Amendments to a House bill in the Idaho Legislature aim to provide uniform data on government spending, greater public accessibility, and reduction in costs to taxpayers.

RS28342 would amend House Bill 73 to create the Committee on Uniform Accounting and Transparency for Local Governmental Entities. That committee would be tasked with developing, approving, monitoring and revising guides for uniform accounting, budgeting, financial reporting and a uniform accounting manual for local governmental entities along with the state controller.

The proposed committee would have seven members, including the chairperson of the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee (or their designee) and the chairperson of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee (or their designee) to act as co-chairs.

It would also include the state controller or their designee, a House and Senate minority representative appointed by their party leaders and the House and Senate majority representative appointed by their party leaders.

The legislation further tasks the state controller with the creation and maintenance of a public website that includes public record reports from local government entities’ accounting, budgeting and financial data in order to provide lawmakers and the public with easy access to search, view and compare data across the state, according to the bill text.

The legislation would allow the state controller to create a staggering project implementation of the website, but would require the project to be fully functional by Jan. 1, 2025, and require annual progress reports.

It also requires the submission of financial data by education providers to be submitted to the state controller’s office for uniform accounting and financial reporting and to increase public access to that data.

Further, the legislation adds amendments to create uniform auditing of health district finances.

More additions would require governmental entities to report the date of their last independent audit, and allow the legislative services offices to impose a late fee of up to $500 a day on entities that failed to submit records after a 30-day grace period following the deadline for submission.

More information about this bill and the amendments can be found on the Legislature’s website at legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2021/legislation.