Massachusetts Puts Funds in Public View

Challenge

Imagine someone else was managing your bank account. You’d probably want some kind of system to keep them accountable. Why? Simple: It’s your money, so you want to know how it’s being spent and see that information on demand. That’s precisely the thinking behind Massachusetts’ financial transparency platform, CTHRU, which opens up payroll and spending data, creates an easier path to statewide costs savings, and empowers citizens to keep officials accountable.

“When we do all those things well, we’re doing our job,” Massachusetts Comptroller William McNamara says. “And that gives us the opportunity and the responsibility to provide transparency to residents, taxpayers, and anyone else who’s interested. With modern tools, we can make that transparency easy to use, easy to access, and in-depth.”

In the five years since it first launched, here are the ways in which CTHRU has changed how Massachusetts’ leaders and constituents view the role of open data in government.

A Better Solution

CTHRU is a unique open data and open records platform powered by Tyler Technologies’ Data & Insights solution that goes beyond serving up rows of numbers and transactions. It provides visuals of the data so citizens and staff can understand it quickly, such as health and human services costs, expenditures, and payroll data.

All applications are available on mobile devices and personal computers, are ADA compliant for sight-impaired users, and offer both staff and residents a more intuitive way to search, access, and review public spending information.

Massachusetts’ legacy transparency system took nearly seven years to customize and install. In 2017, they launched CTHRU in just under seven months. That brought a massive amount of financial data online, including approximately 21 million accounting transactions dating back to 2010.

In 2022 the Office of the Comptroller rebuilt its public website, MAComptroller.org, ensuring that visitors who use it to get to CTHRU will encounter a future-proof entry page that continues to be indispensable to staff and constituents. The site streamlines automatic updates, allows the easy addition of new data channels, like quasi-governmental payroll and state retirement benefits, while users looking to dig in deeper can download datasets.

Diverse Data's Broad Impact

CTHRU has had a varied impact over the last several years, according to Assistant Comptroller Peter Murphy. Among the diverse range of effects, excitement from fellow state agencies stands out the most.

“Many departments were looking for the best way to share spending data with the public,” Murphy says. These agencies have all brought their data to CTHRU, which stands out as a platform that drives data visibility and decision-making.

Different agencies also bring different ideas of what financial data can and should be shared, Murphy says. They are looking forward to moving from just sharing expenditures to capturing revenue. For example, two recent changes in state law legalized cannabis and casino gambling, both of which promise to bring a flood of taxable business income to the state. Now constituents and media can not only see exactly how much money the state makes from those industries, but how they’re distributing the funds. This has set up the expectation that sports betting revenue — to take effect in 2023 — will have the same transparency.

“Once people see examples of the kind of things they can learn, it prompts them to consider more and different and bigger things that can be searched for,” Murphy says.

They’ve added a site that shows recently hired state employees, and gives info on their role, salary, and adds a unique field: Were they recommended by an elected official? This helps the public view exactly who gets a job and potentially how — giving an idea of how fair the hiring process is.

CTHRU’s clean efficiency presents such a refreshing change from many agencies’ existing core systems that state employees are opting to use the site for their own work as well, McNamara noted.

“People who manage departments within the state — state employees, people like me — they go to CTHRU for information even about their own organizations,” McNamara says.

The streamlined CTHRU solution is also a more sustainable model to run. It has eliminated many paper-based systems, reducing the state’s overall carbon footprint. The legacy system required hundreds of staff hours to customize and install and was costly to maintain. Meanwhile, CTHRU cost just 14%, by comparison, to get started and run, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) licensing ensures the system is regularly maintained by Tyler Technologies at no additional cost. This gives Massachusetts the advantages of cloud native technology, like free updates and reliable servers.

Driving Public Engagement and Transparency

While CTHRU has led to major improvements internally, it’s also opened the door for increased transparency and engagement with constituents. The updated CTHRU site gives accessibility to concerned constituents and journalists, and includes specific features for users with disabilities.

Page views increased 20% year over year in both 2020 and 2021, according to Michael Sangalang, chief communications officer for the Office of the Comptroller. CTHRU has around 400,000 views per month, with 20,000 unique users. These numbers, which are impressive for a state of Massachusetts’ size, are reflective that CTHRU has piqued the public’s interest.

“Ultimately, the self-service aspect is another way in which we can be transparent. It’s eliminating a barrier between the public and the information that they’re looking for,” Sangalang says. “We believe that ultimately that will create more accountability and conversely, it will also create more trust in government as well.”

There has been a notable uptick in media inquiries as well, with the number of records requests rising over the last few years along with the amount of available data. These requests are much easier and more efficient to manage with CTHRU, according to Sangalang.

A Bright Future

Looking ahead, Massachusetts is motivated to continue making improvements, with an eye toward giving residents a full view of how money flows in their state. Existing datasets are detailed enough to search for items — like donuts for example — and find that in 2019 around $4,000 was spent each quarter to feed jurors, not for staff breakfasts. CTHRU promises that when new data sets are added, they’ll be just as clear and accessible.

Ensuring upcoming revenues like marijuana and sports betting are accurately reflected and tracked will enhance the state’s position as a leader in data sharing, as has their commitment to adding new datasets, and updating the CTHRU site itself so it’s as accessible as possible.

McNamara says CTHRU often comes up in conversation with leadership from neighboring states. Data transparency is a hot topic at the moment, and there’s lots of interest in how to implement a successful site like CTHRU. Just as important as transparency is the ease of implementation and upkeep of the site for state employees. Automation and simplicity of the tool make it easy to use, without a large, dedicated workforce focusing on it.

“No one here ever says, ‘I don’t know how that will work on CTHRU,’” McNamara says. “If we have the data, there’s no question we can make it easily accessible on the site.”