Ed. Note: The following is a news release courtesy of the City of Santa Clarita.

Santa Clarita launches new online financial reporting platform, enabling easy access to the last few years of the City’s financial data.

The online platform not only provides transparency on how the City spends and receives its money; it does so through easy to understand analysis and visualization tools. Residents can access this new platform by clicking on the Financials icon on this website.

The new financial platform makes the City’s finances—which currently provides information from fiscal year 2012/2013—more manageable and understandable. Residents can explore years of historical revenue and expenditure trends over time by way of interactive graphs. They can drill down to more specific financial details by further filtering the data by fund, department, project, or revenue type—all in just a few clicks.

Visitors will find this a handy tool for seeking answers to frequently asked questions, such as, “What did the City spend on parks over the past two years?” or “How much does the City spend on public safety and where do the funds come from?” Once visitors find the information, it can be downloaded and publicly shared directly from the platform on social media or via email.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to deliver greater transparency of the City’s budget and financial information. This new interactive financial platform will help us do just that. We’ve had our budgets online before, but residents can now review where their money goes in an easy and visual way,” explains Mayor Marsha McLean. “They’ll see financial data presented in colorful graphs and can choose to view the information that most interests them,” she added.

The City’s new financial platform is powered by OpenGov, a web-based financial analysis and visualization software for state and local governments.  For more information about the City of Santa Clarita please visit their website here.