ONTARIO – Ontario will be the second city in Richland County to post its financial information online through OhioCheckbook.com.
Ontario follows in the footsteps of Mansfield as part of the financial transparency program.
“The City of Ontario is committed to financial transparency for its residents,” said auditor Mary Anne Hellinger. “By joining the Ohio Checkbook, our citizens can now access the city’s spending information in a user-friendly format.”
Dan Risko, deputy director of public relations for the Ohio State Treasurer’s office, attended Wednesday night’s Ontario city council meeting to announce the news.
The online checkbook lists almost 20,000 individual transactions from 2013 to April 2017 that equate to more than $53 million in spending.
Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel launched the website at a statewide level in December 2014. In March 2015, Ohio was listed as the number one state in regard to transparency in the U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s “Following the Money” report. It’s remained first since then.
“Ohio really became the leader in transparency,” Risko said.
The first local governments joined in September 2015. Mansfield joined in late 2015.
“After we were named number one, we knew we were on to something, and so we set out to invite every local government in the state to do this at no cost,” Risko said.
The website is interactive and allows people to search for departments, vendors or other keywords using a “Google-style” search tool.
“If I want to look up the department of transportation spending, I just have to start typing, T-R-A-N-S, and just like you’d find on Google, the department of transportation pops up along with everything else that has T-R-A-N-S in the name,” said Risko.
The City of Ontario’s involvement was finalized earlier during the day prior to the council meeting. But Hellinger said it took months of preparation.
More than 1,100 local government and school districts in the state are now on OhioCheckbook.com.
Ontario’s checkbook can be viewed at ontario.ohiocheckbook.com/transparency#/7228/query=A9361B45BE9E300FF5D35FF33D947C49.
