House Bill 420 Sponsor Testimony 

By Tom Brinkman

Chairman Daniels, Ranking Member Stewart, and members of the House State Government and Elections Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of House Bill 420, the taxpayer transparency and accountability bill.

This piece of legislation is modeled after the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL).

Since the Federal Transparency Act was passed in 2006, states including Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma have passed “Taxpayer Transparency Acts.”

House Bill 420 would create a single searchable website accessible by the public at no cost and run by the office of budget and management.  It would list relevant information on state awards and earmarks including the entity receiving the award, the amount, the purpose, etc. 

House Bill 420 would also create the Ohio real property council, a sub-division of the office of budget and management.  The Ohio real property council would work with state agencies to compile a list of all state owned real property to be indexed and made available on the website.

Finally, the office of budget and management will assess each state program every 24 month cycle to determine the overall effectiveness of the program and based on that assessment, make recommendations on ways to improve the program.

The bill would require the website to be accessible by January 1, 2009.

While much of this information is available in various sources, this bill is important because it makes all this information available in one location and easily available to the public.  In today’s digital society, information that is not available online is only nominally public.

Our democracy is founded on the moral authority of government with power derived from the consent of the people.  That consent is not truly valuable unless the people are informed of the actions of its government.

This concludes my testimony on House Bill 420.  I would appreciate your support and yes vote on this bill.

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding House Bill 420.

Tom Brinkman is a State Representative from the 34th House District.