A new web portal operated by the city of Riverside seeks to take complexity out of the budgetary process by offering graphs and other simple visual representations intended to demystify how municipal funds are spent, city officials said Tuesday.
“Riverside embraces transparency, and this online tool will give residents and business owners the opportunity to become more informed about the budget document whenever they choose,” Mayor Rusty Bailey said. “By making information easier to understand and available 24 hours per day, Riverside is taking budget transparency to a new level.”
The portal can be accessed via www.engageriverside.com .
“The budgets of large organizations, be they cities or Fortune 500 companies, can be daunting for average people who are just trying to figure out how things are being run,” said Councilman Chuck Conder. “This new online tool will help people visualize our finances in a place that is always open online.”
The data tables on the site were created using documents from the city’s two-year budget plans, spanning fiscal years 2018-19 to 2019-20.
Outlays are $1.08 billion and $1.12 billion, respectively, according to officials.
The portal crunches figures synthesized by OpenBook technology from Questica, giving users the ability to see how each municipal agency is funded, the amount being set aside for capital projects, the number of people on the payroll and other details.