CHAPTER 133

H.P. 1302 - L.D. 1780

Resolve, To Promote Transparency in Budgeting

Sec. 1. Pilot project. Resolved: That representatives from the office of the Chief Information Officer within the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, the Executive Department, State Planning Office and the Department of Audit shall work together to initiate a pilot project to develop a publicly accessible site on the Internet for the purpose of posting municipal and county budgets and shall invite a representative of the Maine Municipal Association to work with them. The purpose of this pilot project is to make this information more readily available to the public and municipal and county officials. The program must include the following components:

1. Voluntary participation. Participation in the pilot project must be voluntary for municipalities and counties;

2. Lead agency. One state agency must be designated as the lead agency to create and maintain the publicly accessible site on the Internet; and

3. Existing resources. The pilot project must be created within existing resources.

The lead agency designated under subsection 2 shall report to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over state and local government matters by January 14, 2005 with recommendations on creating a permanent publicly accessible site on the Internet for this purpose.