Metro Council members Ken Fleming, R-7, and Hal Heiner, R-19, will introduce an ordinance later today that could give Louisville residents better online access to the city’s financial records and business dealings.

The e-transparency ordinance would create an online resource website with multiple inquiry options for the public to easily navigate the city’s budget and view government expenditures. The idea is similar to the commonwealth’s Open Door website, which launched earlier this month to help the public track how the state government is spending their tax dollars. Other states have created similar websites, including Georgia and Missouri.

The two Republicans also plan to discuss how the council will fund the searchable database, which they say is aimed at fostering greater transparency and accountability in Metro government.

UPDATE:

Joined by union leaders, Councilman Fleming held a press conference in council chambers and presented an example of how a similar website from Milwaukee County, Wisc. provides detailed government expenditures online.

“This powerful, public tool sheds light on how government spends money,” Fleming says. “For many years the Metro Council has requested information from the mayor and his administration. Information that has been difficult to obtain and even ignored.”

Fleming says he spoke with the mayor’s office last year about creating a better online resource, but he characterized the meetings as “slow and laborious.” He says their approach was to stick to the current online format.

Chad Carlton, a spokesman for the mayor, says the mayor’s office had conversations about online accessibility with the councilman and that e-transparency has been a priority of Metro government since city and county governments merged in 2003.

“Remember we had two different governments with their own software systems that were not compatible, not to mention outside agencies,” Carlton says. “There’s been a tremendous effort to put additional resources and information outlining the budget and finances online.”

In 2008 the Center for Digital Government ranked Louisville Metro third among cities nationwide for its Best of the Web awards. Carlton says they’re interested in making the information more accessible and that there is room for improvement, but he adds that Metro government has made huge strides over the past four years.

“Once the ordinance has been shared with us, certainly we’re willing to look at those things to make information more available,” he says. “The questions will come down to a matter of cost and the time, what can we do easily without spending more money.”

Councilman Fleming says creating the database will not cost the city any additional money because there are already Metro employees doing many of the things needed to create such a site. He says the hardest part would be setting up the data to be automatically available using current financial reporting software.

Councilman Hal Heiner, R-19, told media during today’s press conference that the ordinance sets the completion date for Metro government’s improved website for January 2010. In the meantime, the two council Republicans are preparing to create an independent searchable database that will be available later this spring. The independent project will be funded through council office accounts that can be accessed on Heiner and Fleming’s websites.

“In time, and after passage of our proposed e-transparency ordinance, we expect Metro government to take over the site and quickly become a source for the many finance questions posed by taxpayers and elected officials alike,” Heiner said.