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Who cares
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Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Referred to finance
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the state finance law, in relation to the budget
Purpose
To provide the public an easily readable and understandable Citizens' Guide to the State Budget.
Summary of provisions
Section 1 amends Section 22 of the state finance law by adding a new subdivision 17 creating the Citizens' Guide to the State Budget. For the fiscal year beginning in 2017, the Director of the Budget's office, with input from the Secretary of State's office, shall produce an annual Citizens' Guide to the State Budget, Revenue and Expenditures. The guide shall be in a form and substance that is easily readable and understandable by the general public. It shall include data on each department's purpose and populations served, and where available may include performance measures over time, depicted in a graphic format. The guide shall be produced and released on the Secretary of State's website no later than 60 days after the public release of the annual Division of the Budget's Enacted Budget Report. The Citizens' Guide need only be prepared in an online or electronic format; no hard copy will be required.
Section 2 provides this act shall take effect immediately.
Existing law
New law
Justification
The state's budget, revenue and expenditures should be readily available, in one document, to the public in a format that is easy to read and understand. Increasing transparency will reduce the spread of misinformation, encourage civic participation and promote public trust in the political process. It would create accountability in the sense that citizens would know the executive and legislature would not be able to "hide" information pertaining to how their money was spent in hard to navigate documents. To that end, this is a simple but important ethics reform measure.
Legislative history
New bill
Fiscal implications
None
Local fiscal implications
None
Effective date
This act shall take effect immediately.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.