PRESS RELEASE DETAIL
For release: IMMEDIATELY
Release Date: 07/19/2015
Mayor Holden Announces Launch of Open Budget BR Digital Platform
Mayor-President Melvin “Kip” Holden announced today the launch of Open Budget BR, a digital platform designed to function as a tool for citizens to better understand the intricacies of the City-Parish budget. Within the platform, users are able to track how – and to what extent – various departments, programs and services are funded. The launch of Open Budget BR comes just months after the release of Open Data BR, which resulted in the City-Parish receiving national recognition for its efforts to promote digital innovation and transparency within government.
“Open Data BR served as a tremendous tipping point in our efforts to create a more digital, engaging and transparent City-Parish government, and today we reach another milestone in those efforts with the launch of a platform that will provide additional transparency and foster understanding about one of the most complex parts of government – our City-Parish budget,” said Mayor Holden. “Through easy-to-read charts and graphs, a searchable database and a clear path to track sources and uses of public funds, Open Budget BR offers a unique perspective into our local government budget that has never been seen before. The tool will serve as a benchmark for financial transparency into our local government operations for years to come.”
Open Budget BR, publicly accessible at budget.brla.gov, breaks the City-Parish budget down into two distinct areas – the capital budget and annual operating budget.
The capital budget component of Open Budget BR features detailed insights into the funding behind capital programs such as the Green Light Plan and Sanitary Sewer Overflow program, as well as individual capital projects ranging from road construction projects to library and Baton Rouge River Center improvements. Meanwhile, the operating budget component includes all budgetary items required to run City-Parish departments, programs and services on a day-to-day basis ranging from critical services provided by the Baton Rouge Police and Baton Rouge Fire departments to expenses associated with operating programs such as Head Start centers and the City-Parish community centers.
Each budgetary category can be explored in greater detail by simply clicking on the line item, which will allow users to navigate all the way to the project- or program-specific level. In addition to providing easy-to-understand views of budgetary line items, the platform’s “How’s it funded?” tool allows users to track the specific funding sources upon which each budgetary line item relies – from general fund expenses to those associated with bond sales or designated sales tax capital improvement funds.
“As we have demonstrated through Open Data BR and now Open Budget BR, we are laser-focused on innovating and engaging with Baton Rouge citizens in ways that we may have never thought were possible just several years ago,” said Eric Romero, Interim Director of the Department of Information Services. “While a number of advances in technology help make initiatives like these happen, the reality is that our ability to implement such efforts are wholly dependent on the vision and leadership demonstrated by Mayor Holden when it comes to digital innovation, as well as the talented team that we have in place here at Information Services.”
Romero explained that one of the main benefits of the new Open Budget BR platform is the ability to search for information specific to a department, division or City-Parish function, as opposed to navigating through hundreds of pages of complicated legal and financial information. Open Budget BR can also be accessed on mobile devices. In addition, all data included on the platform can be downloaded into spreadsheet format for additional analysis beyond the chart and table features included on the site.
Open Budget BR is currently live and up-to-date with current-year budget information. Over time, historical budget data will be added to the system in order for users to track trends in revenues and expenditures from year-to-year. For more information, please visit budget.brla.gov.