BOISE, Idaho — If you want to play elected official word association, Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf would likely select the word transparency.
“You know, it's my passion and it's been from day one and continues this day, and I hope that passion comes through,” Woolf said.
Woolf has served as state controller since 2012, with the role of managing Idaho’s financial affairs. A major project Woolf has worked on for a decade is showing the people of Idaho where their tax dollars go in the government, and what the financial status of it all is.
“The biggest part to me is building trust, and we've seen that trust in government has gone down at an all time low," Woolf said. "Everywhere we look, everywhere we see social media, anywhere we look at it, people are like, 'I don't know if we trust the feds, state or local government.' So, that's my biggest opportunity, is how can we build that trust back up?"
Enter Transparent Idaho, a webpage Woolf and his team have taken great pride in developing in recent years. Here you can see details of government spending and finances at the state level, and how it breaks down across all the agencies.
Now, Transparent Idaho has a fancy new feature, one Gem State residents asked for: local government breakdowns.
“My vision was always, 'how do we get local governments involved as well?' There's 44 counties, 199 cities, 186 school districts and charter schools, 800 plus taxing districts. So, you sit there and think about how many times you're going to have to click to go to every one of those," Woolf said. "But my vision is there's one way we could put all of that information on one site, on Transparent Idaho."
Woolf said through a great partnership with Idaho’s county clerks, Transparent Idaho can show you detailed finances and spending information for every individual county. There you can compare and contrast, creating a point for local policy decisions.
It can be complicated data to go through on its own, but Woolf and his team worked to change that.
“I always say I wanted to make this as easy – that my grandma can use this – and make it accessible and make it so that whether you have some understanding in a particular area that's of interest to you – whether it's transportation or fish and game or local government – I want to make it easy that any citizen can be able to dive in and look for it," Woolf said. "Maybe even get carried away in a rabbit hole and go down here and spend days and hours like I do."
The idea here is transparency across the board, a helpful tool for having major debates and discussions.
“We want more citizen engagement, that was a big driver of all this as well. So, not only can I compare my neighboring counties, but I can compare to, say, how do we fit and what can we learn from these best practices," Woolf said. "Maybe this county sheriff, how much are they spending and how does that compared to our county? We can call them up and say, 'hey, what are you doing, and it looks like you're doing a great job. How can we implement those best practices.'"
Woolf told KTVB the work does not stop here, either. Soon, more hyper-local data and tools will be added.
“The big part is we're just going to add more and more and more. Being able to put those metrics to say, 'how much are we spending on roads and bridges per mile compared to this area?' As we add more and more, I think I'll just build the trust. You know, we want to deter any fraud," Woolf said. "We want to change the culture of what this data means and, you know, Justice Brandeis back in 1914 said 'sunshine is the best disinfectant.' If we open up the books, we shine the lights. Hopefully that in the long, big scheme, we mix all this altogether, really to build that trust back up in government,” Woolf said.
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