Idaho Creates New Transparency Website

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Want to know the top-paid state employees? Or how much the Department of Health and Welfare is spending? Idaho has created a new transparency website, to make it easier to find these and thousands of others of details about state government finances. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and Controller Brandon Woolf announced http://transparent.idaho.gov Thursday.

Otter said the site was akin to public records requests "on steroids," while Woolf said the site's information would be updated nightly, to provide up-to-the-day snapshots of what's happening in state government. The site is modeled after similar accountability projects in places like Washington state and West Virginia and is part of a state-government transparency trend. Idaho's project is modest, completed on a $28,000 budget but within Woolf's agency's existing spending package — important in conservative Idaho.