The Budget that Never Sleeps
Deficit hawks have been frothing at the mouth lately, but what else is new? They are a militant breed of relentless citizens who are obsessed with things that politicians willfully ignore, like pork barrel projects, inflation, and fiscal responsibility. But the recent wave of anti-incumbent sentiment coupled with the rise of the Tea Party movement is producing some bizarre results, mainly in the form of budgetary transparency. Well, sort of.
New York appears to be bowing to its economically conservative population (it is the home of Wall Street after all) by becoming the first city in the nation to present its annual budget on-line for anyone who's interested in finding out where the money really goes. You can see it for yourself right here:http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/mymoneynyc/Checkbooknyc/index.asp. The site is the brainchild of City Comptroller (no that's not a typo) John Lui, although the infamous Mayor Bloomberg probably played a role in launching it as well. The city is notorious for its extravagance, and this carefully calculated move comes as taxpayer confidence is plummeting faster than the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The site itself is a gargantuan pdf file that allows users the view the city's expenses by governmental department, issue category, payee, and contract beneficiary, although this information is presented anonymously to protect the recipient's privacy. There's also a transaction feature, but every time I click on it I'm told that there are simply too many results to list. I'm willing to accept that, although it makes me wonder why this tab exists in the first place. Apparently you have to start by clicking on a specific item under one of the other categories in order to access this facet. Other than that, navigation is fairly straight forward. Some of the budget categories seem relatively vague, such as "books-other," while others are downright weird. For instance, the city's spent a little over $8 million on something labeled, "mental hygiene services," which sounds suspiciously close to dental floss for the brain, which seems oddly appropriate.
This list of the city's numerous departments is educational in the sense that it gives you a peak into the inner workings of a tangled web of municipal bureaucracy that would make even Max Weber shake his head in disbelief. Consider the official Civilian Complaints Review Board that's costing the people of New York about $600,000. Naturally, I picture a long line of George Costanzas standing outside city hall waiting for their chance to tell the board about stolen parking places and Soup Nazis. There's also a separate Conflicts of Interest board, which has spent most of its $100,000 some odd dollars primarily on office supplies and non-overnight travel. Ironically enough, Debt Services eat up a huge chunk of the city's resources, over $3 billion, give or take a few million. Even some of the routine agencies' expenses come off as a questionable, like the law department that has spent $42, 795 thus far on......library books? Speaking of legal services, the miscellaneous expenses are filled with, you guessed it, legal stuff, such as counsel for the indigent. Um, don't public defenders qualify as legal services? Mr. Bloomberg may have bitten off more than he can chew so to speak; that is, if he was instrumental in creating this site. A quick glance into his office's expenses reveals that his staff has already spent thousands on liquor and meals at a presumably upscale restaurant called The Lobster Place.
Aside from its stupefying content, the site appears to deliver on its promise of complete accountability. Of course, critics are quick to point out that this tracker leaves a few things out. It does not tell you how much an agency is supposed to be spending, so it's impossible to tell which ones are overspending. Still, its figures are far more accurate that the federal government's site, www.fedspending.org, but that's not saying much.
