As Pennsylvania’s State Treasurer, Joe Torsella will leverage technology and citizen engagement to expand and enrich access to state government information, ensuring that Pennsylvanians know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent. Making information that is already a matter of public record accessible, searchable and navigable, Joe’s Pennsylvania Sunshine Checkbook initiative will provide citizens and government officials alike with a powerful new tool to scrutinize and reform the Commonwealth’s financial practices.

Modeled on the successful and award-winning Open Checkbook site developed by Ohio’s Treasurer, Joe’s plan will move Pennsylvania from the lowest tier of transparency into a higher rank of states nationwide providing access to financial information. It will make monitoring state spending as intuitive as consulting a bank statement. Just as many Pennsylvanians go online and use monthly bank and credit card statements to review their own expenditures, make adjustments to their budgets, detect irregularities and prevent fraud, Sunshine Checkbook will facilitate a new era of real-time transparency in state spending.

In an age of Big Data, Pennsylvania Sunshine Checkbook will be a powerful tool for better government. It will incorporate 21st century analytics, fostering data-driven decision making and innovation by government officials and putting actionable information in the hands of the people to prevent waste and to drive reform.