5 Tools

Internet budget disclosure
Citizen as CEO

Getting a handle on information and placing it at the patron's fingertips is a dual challenge:

First, it is an ongoing process of governments mining information of what it is doing in an ever-more meaningful way. This helps determine truer costs of services and can help expose waste. 

Second, it becomes a proper role to display it all so that the elected official, department heads, and the entity's workers all have the access the data they use from an internet portal, rather than an in-house closed computer network.

Activity-based costing gives all parties a dynamic management tool,  in that it is a real look at cost of government services. But now,  that tool, that information is centerpiece of the internet portal information delivered by the government.

All this brings about a new dynamic in government: opportunity for citizen involvement in a way that has never been.

TAXPAYER THE CFO
With this kind of data the citizen becomes the armchair CEO; the taxpayer becomes  the shareholder and co-CFO. The system would give both citizen, elected leader, and head manager the same critical information.

All parties are given new abilities to see what government is doing and help determine what government should and should not be doing.

The new debate becomes one of what are core vs. non-core functions.

In addition, all would know what private contractors are performing for the government, as well as the performance criteria on which it is being done. Other future competing companies can track costs and determine if the service can be done for less money or even if additional enhancements can be added to the service that will fulfill needs such as increased safety on the roads or a pavement material that lasts longer.

If there was ever a way to show taxpayers that a government jurisdiction truly needs a tax increase, it will be justified on the basis of proving in black and white the exact current condition of the budget.