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Friday, December 03, 2010

Ind. Gov't. - Indiana Senate Democrats, through their blog, The Briefing Room, have stepped up [Updated]

From a Nov. 17, 2010 ILB entry:

Updating this ILB entry from earlier this morning, the IBJ is now reporting that "all Indiana General Assembly committee meetings will be shown live online in the 2011 session for the first time."

I haven't seen an announcement from the Senate, however. The General Assembly convenes Jan. 5, 2011.

Moreover, the very important hearings of the Indiana State Budget Committee are taking place right now. As far as I know, they are NOT being videocast online. Today begins the review of state university budgets. In the opinion of the ILB, these [state budget committee] hearings should not only be videocast and archived, but the budget documents submitted by the agencies and institutions should be posted.

From a Nov. 29 ILB entry:
... Fascinating stuff, right? Much of the information (but not Weidenbener's skillful putting it together) is from today's testimony before the State Budget Committee which, as the ILB first wrote on Nov. 17, 2010, sadly is NOT videocast. Think of what else you, the public, are missing from these hearings, which are going on daily for a month.
But last evening the ILB learned that the Indiana Senate Democrats, through their blog, The Briefing Room, have stepped up to fill part of this information gap.

Their introductory entry was posted Nov. 23, 2010. Some quotes:

Released in conjunction with the Open Government Initiative and efforts to improve transparency in state government budgets and spending, the Briefing Room will be profiling action by the State Budget Committee and the Indiana General Assembly as they prepare to write a balanced budget in the face of restricted state revenues and a slowly recovering economy.

This is the first in a series of Briefing Room posts that will highlight the state budget requests and discuss progress of the next two-year state budget. * * *

While Indiana’s state budget process is a public matter, budget-related information can often be presented in forms that are difficult to access and hard to understand. The state’s budget documents include constantly changing revenue projections, fluctuating income statements and fund balances, thousand-page revenue reports, multiple budget bills and spending options considered by the General Assembly, and long lists of appropriations and expenses that are paid by the state. All things considered, state budget accounting is necessarily complicated. However, there ought to be a way to break down this budget information so everyone can understand how and where our state tax dollars are being spent.

It is our hope that the Budget Briefs will not only improve citizens’ understanding of the budget writing process, but that they will also prompt engagement in a discourse that will help legislators define the state’s spending priorities. Use the Briefing Room to follow legislators through the budget writing process from planning, to decision making.

The university budget presentations were the first on the state budget committee agenda, and this Nov. 30, 2010 entry links to all the presentations and requests.

Kuddos from the ILB. This is a real public service and, combined with the Speaker's move to videocast all House committee meetings during the session, marks a real step forward in making the legislative committee process more transparent.

[Update at 12:27 PM] A reader writes to advise the ILB:

I see you keep asking about Senate hearings being webcast. [A]ll the Senate committee rooms were already equipped with equipment and webcasting last session and maybe the session before. They use room 130; 233; the chamber floor and Senate Appropriations. So it was the House catching up with the Senate.
Thanks to the reader. I knew some of the Senate comittee rooms were wired, but wasn't sure all the committee meetings had been broadcast consistently in the past. This is good!

All that remains now on this particular list is for the State Budget Committee hearings to be videocast, and for all videocasts, both interim and during the session, to be archived so that those who work or go to school during the day also can also access them.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 3, 2010 06:26 AM
Posted to Indiana Government