Oklahoma Senate launches interactive budget website

A year ago, Oklahoma's legislative chambers engaged in a bit of a transparency contest, with the Senate posting a spreadsheet of their budget proposal, while the House went with a full-blown website dashboard. Now, the Senate has followed suit with their own version of a webpage. You can compare the two and see which one is more clear and user-friendly: State House, State Senate.

Oklahoma Senate launches interactive budget website

OKLAHOMA CITY (May 16th) – Senate Appropriations Chairman Chuck Hall, R-Perry announced today that the Oklahoma Senate has launched an interactive budget website that gives the public an unprecedented, in-depth look at the newly proposed state budget.

Unveiled shortly after legislative leaders and the governor reached a budget agreement for the upcoming fiscal year, the State Senate Budget Transparency Dashboard is designed to make the state budgeting process more accessible and transparent than ever before. The user-friendly platform allows Oklahomans to explore the full breakdown of the proposed state budget for the upcoming fiscal year, along with historical data from previous budgets.

With a modern and easy-to-use design, the State Senate Budget Transparency Dashboard lets users see exactly how taxpayer dollars are being appropriated. The public can look at funding for individual state agencies and learn more about specific line items.

“For the past two years, the Oklahoma Senate has led the way in making the state budget process more transparent, giving Oklahomans a front-row seat to how their tax dollars are spent and bringing a new level of accountability to state government,” Hall said. “The launch of the Senate Budget Transparency Dashboard is a major milestone and the culmination of everything we’ve done to shine a light on building a state budget. I’m incredibly grateful to the Senate’s dedicated fiscal staff, who put in long hours and late nights to bring this website to fruition. Their hard work ensures every Oklahoman has easy access to detailed budget information and a better understanding of how their tax dollars are being spent."

Senate Appropriations Vice Chairman John Haste, R-Broken Arrow, praised the dashboard and emphasized the importance of an open budget process. 

"As Vice Chair of Appropriations, I’ve been proud to work alongside Chairman Hall to make the budget process more open and accountable,” Haste said. “This dashboard is a powerful step forward in giving Oklahomans the transparency they deserve."

The Senate Budget Transparency Dashboard can be found here.