Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater told a JAX Chamber young professionals group Wednesday that he put 23,000 state contracts online for public review.
“As treasurer, I’m the one who signs the check,” he said.
“We’re spending your money. Wouldn’t you like to know we’re actually accomplishing what we set out to do?” he asked about 20 members and guests at an ImpactJAX gathering at the JAX Chamber Downtown.
The Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System, or FACTS, is available at www.MyFloridaCFO.com/Transparency.
Atwater said almost 60 percent of the $70 billion state budget is not paid to employees. “It’s contracted,” he said.
“Some of these contracts are pretty weak,” he said, not elaborating.
In a news release Wednesday, Atwater announced the launch of FACTS, described as “a comprehensive online tool that offers Floridians greater visibility into how their government is doing business. The new FACTS tool, available on CFO Atwater’s Transparency Florida website, makes state contracting processes transparent through a centralized, statewide contract reporting system.”
“The FACTS system reflects my longstanding commitment to my fellow Floridians to make state contracts accessible to the public online,” Atwater said in the release.
“Through FACTS, Floridians can now see at the click of a mouse how their government is deploying their tax dollars. Nearly $50 billion, or approximately 56 percent of the state budget, is spent on contracts and agreements for goods and services. This system will ensure higher levels of efficiency and accountability from our government and elected leaders,” said he release.
According to the release, during the 2011 legislative session, “the Legislature solidified its commitment to transparency and agency contract reporting by passing Senate Bill 2096, championed by CFO Atwater, which required public access to a state contract management system. CFO Atwater’s Department of Financial Services has spent countless hours over the past year developing the system and training state agencies on how to input their contract information.“
The release said the FACTS system will serve as a living extension of the way all Florida state agencies manage and report their contracts to the public.
“The tool is not simply historical data placed online; it includes contract information that is regularly updated and audited. Through the new system, users are able to search for state contracts by state agency, vendor, dollar amount, date and commodity or service type provided. Search results are available in a downloadable format as well as in a detailed information page which also lists contract deliverables.“
It said the FACTS system is just the first step Atwater’s goal to make state contracting more efficient and transparent. The system already includes contract images from DFS and in the next month will include the five highest dollar amount contracts from each state agency.
The release said all state agency contract images will be available online later this year. Additionally, DFS will audit and publish its findings of contract performance to the FACTS system for Floridians to determine how well state government establishes and manages contracts.
It said a contract becomes available to the public as soon as a state agency contract manager loads the contract information into the online system. Florida law requires state agencies to input contracts to FACTS within 30 days of execution.
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