Budget Transparency

Why We Need It

In my first press conference, I pledged to “pull the curtain back” on the Sheriff’s budget finances. I said: “Most people can’t tell you the first thing about where the money’s been spent. I believe it’s on purpose. It’s a glaring transparency issue.”

The Sheriff responded with a Facebook post sharing a link to a State website:

The State website was detailed, but it was not transparent. In fact, many people told me they couldn’t make sense of it. It’s a list of expenditures, like a checkbook.

For example, how much is being spent on education? You can’t tell from the State website.

It takes days of research to read through the State’s budget and payroll system, as well as other published data, in order to begin to understand the ratio of employees to inmate population, to payroll, and to the total budget.

This is not transparency. Some information is not readily available, and the information that is available is NOT published in one easy to find place, on the Sheriff’s website, like the City of Pittsfield does with its Budget.

If I am elected, this type of information will be readily available to the public. Sheriff Bowler is now spending over $20,000,000 of your taxpayer dollars. You deserve at all times to know how your money is being spent.

Here is a short summary budget analysis of the last 10 years:.