Imagine if there was a way that you could truly see exactly what Lafayette Consolidated Government is doing with taxpayer money? Well, now you can.

If you want to know how much a particular department's budget is in Lafayette government, now you can find out. You can see how much they spend. It's a tool called OpenBook.

If you have always wanted to see where the dollars and cents are going, OpenBook is the new interactive tool to do it. In order to get started checking out where your money is going, just click here. According to officials with Lafayette Consolidated Government, via press release, the information on this site will be updated each Monday.

Lafayette Mayor/President Josh Guillory has said many times on his weekly show on KPEL ( Lafayette Live with Mayor/President Josh Guillory ) that he wants our local government to be as transparent as possible because we are footing the bill. He literally said several times that our dealings should be an open book.

Guillory says,

With this new tool, we'll have much greater transparency in City and Parish finances. It allows taxpayers to see exactly how tax dollars are spent. It underlines my commitment to government accountability and transparency. I commend my Finance and Management team for their hard work on this important project.

So, the big question is, "is this website user-friendly"? Chief Financial Officer Lorrie Toups says the answer is "yes".

Toups says,

The information is easy to read and navigate. Citizens can access information from the comfort of their own home, at their convenience, and can provide direct feedback to LCG's Budget Management Division.

So if you want to know, for example, how different is what we projected that things were going to cost, and what we actually paid for them, you can click here. You can even do a comparison from year to year in order to find out whether or not spending has gone up or down. You can even see where the money was spent from year to year. It's an easy to use tool. It includes easy to understand graphs and charts.  What vendors do we pay for services and what services are we paying for, all of this information is available via this website.

 

”&CHAR(34)&(R[0

 

Things That You End Up With In Your Home

 

More From News Talk 96.5 KPEL