In 2018, the Department of FISCal (FI$Cal) established the Open FI$Cal transparency portal to provide public access to state departments’ expenditure data. Government code section 11862 requires FI$Cal to, “include a state transparency component that allows the public to have access to information regarding General Fund, special fund, and federal fund expenditure data, using an Internet Web site”. Since the launch of the portal in 2018, two major components – the interactive expenditure data report and the downloadable data files – have largely been supported by the information technology contractor, OpenGov. As part of FI$Cal’s commitment to continuous improvements, the plan has been to eventually transition operations of the transparency portal to FI$Cal.
As of August 11, 2023, FI$Cal has made changes to enhance Open FI$Cal’s downloadable data site with an in-house Power BI transparency report and an Azure-based file storage where expenditure data files are available for download. Just as before, the new site is accessible from the Access FI$Cal page on FISCal’s public site.
The new site also includes all of the filtering options as before and has some additional filters that were not previously available. The search function and the method for downloading raw data files have been improved in an effort to make these functions more user friendly. As we continue to manage the website, we will look for additional opportunities to enhance the transparency portal.
The OpenGov-powered transparency report and downloadable data site will be phased out when our contract ends in September 2023. If you have previously saved links to the interactive expenditure report or the downloadable data site, please visit the Open FI$Cal homepage and navigate to the new report and download locations.