City Of Bloomington Upgrades Open Finance Portal With More Data, Greater Accessibility

(BLOOMINGTON) – The City of Bloomington has upgraded its Open Finance financial transparency portal, to provide greater access to the City’s financial information. 

Updated daily, the interactive website provides user-friendly visualizations of the City of Bloomington’s expenditure, revenue, and payroll information for the current fiscal year, as well as a historical view of previous years.  The portal can be used to search for details and chart the history of municipal expenses and revenues by category, department, function, fund, and vendor. 

“Information is power, and public information helps the public have power. Financial and budget information can help city leaders, residents, and all business and nonprofit stakeholders as we weigh the proposed 2021 budget against current and historical revenues and spending,” said Mayor John Hamilton.  “My administration has been committed to opening the doors of City Hall, and that includes making public information as accessible as possible. Check out this new portal to learn more about the way public funds are invested to build a better Bloomington.”

Drawing from the City’s Financial Management system, the site houses the following large City data sets:

  • Expenditures
  • Payroll
  • Vendors
  • Budgeted Expenses
  • Budgeted Revenues  

The data sets are visualized in the following ways:

  • Total Spending: explore Total Spending by Department, Fund, Division, Vendor, or Expense Category.
  • Total Payroll: explore Total Payroll by Department, Employee.
  • Revenue Budget: explore Revenues by Department, Division, or Revenue Type.
  • Operating Budget: explore Operating Budget by Department, Division, or Expenditure Type.

The proposed 2021 budget will be incorporated into the site once it is finalized and passed by the Bloomington Common Council in October.  The new portal was deployed by the City’s Information and Technology Services Department (ITS) Enterprise Applications team with support from the Controller’s office and other City departments, and uses Tyler Technologies’ Socrata data platform.  

“We’re glad to improve our reporting and financial transparency for the public,” said ITS Director Rick Dietz.  “The new Open Finance portal gives residents expanded interactive access to city revenue, expenses, vendor and salary information at a glance.”

The City’s Open Finance portal can be accessed from these URLs: