{"id":91641,"date":"2017-08-19T07:21:51","date_gmt":"2017-08-19T12:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=91641"},"modified":"2017-08-19T07:23:45","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T12:23:45","slug":"ohio-treasurer-promotes-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2017\/08\/19\/ohio-treasurer-promotes-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio treasurer promotes program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Treasurer of Ohio, I believe taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.\u00a0All too often, we, the people, aren\u2019t able to follow our money once we write a check to city hall, the state capital, or Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that when we make government small in size and scope, we make the individual big.\u00a0And in giving taxpayers a tool to follow every cent of their hard-earned tax money,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>\u00a0helps to transfer the power from the politicians to the people.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_91642\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91642\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-91642\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Ohio-Treasurer-Josh-Mandel-headshot-8-2017.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"306\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-91642\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>By Josh Mandel<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As state treasurer, I created\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>\u00a0to empower you to hold politicians\u2019 feet to the fire. And since its launch in 2014,\u00a0we\u2019ve reached many important milestones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><u>New National Standard<\/u><\/strong>:\u00a0 As a result of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>, we brought Ohio\u2019s fiscal transparency ranking from 46th to 1st in the nation.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>All 88<\/u><\/strong>: Each of Ohio\u2019s 88 counties now have local governments who have posted their spending on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Local Governments and Schools<\/u><\/strong>: Nearly 1,200 local governments and school districts have joined the movement for statewide government transparency by partnering with my office to post their spending information online.\u00a0Here in Van Wert County, the Village of Scott is participating.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>More Data Available<\/u><\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>\u00a0now displays over $598 billion of state spending over the past nine fiscal years, including over 164 million individual checks. This information is online and at the fingers of anyone with an internet connection &#8212; everything from $2 for a pack of pencils to $2 million for road expenditures, and everything in between.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Public Universities:<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0 We recently celebrated another significant milestone with the addition of the first public institutes of higher education on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>.\u00a0Bowling Green State University, Central State University and the Central Ohio Technical College paved the way for other universities to follow by posting their finances online.\u00a0This occasion marked the first time in history taxpayers are able to follow their money at the university level.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Public Pension Funds<\/u><\/strong>:\u00a0 We made history by expanding\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>\u00a0to include Ohio\u2019s five statewide public pension funds, becoming the first state in the country to have all statewide public pension funds\u2019 operating expenditures online.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said, \u201csunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.\u201d\u00a0And\u00a0I agree.\u00a0By posting government spending online, citizens are able to play an active role in their government and help root out fraud, waste and abuse.<\/p>\n<p>My hope is that more local governments in Van Wert County will continue to join me in my mission of empowering taxpayers to hold politicians accountable.<\/p>\n<p>Visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ohiocheckbook.com\/\">OhioCheckbook.com<\/a>\u00a0to see if your community and schools are posting their spending. And if they refuse, I encourage you to show up at their city council meetings and school board meetings and ask them what they have to hide?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Treasurer of Ohio, I believe taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.\u00a0All too often, we, the people, aren\u2019t able to follow our money once we write a check to city hall, the state capital, or Washington, D.C. I believe that when we make government small in size and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 10:49:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}