Proponent: Web site would help keep tabs on state pending

COLUMBUS — The state would be required to post details about public employees salaries, business tax credits and agencies’ spending decisions on a new Web site, under legislation introduced in the Ohio Senate.

Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Republican from Cuyahoga Falls, told members of the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday that his bill would create a “one-stop shop for average Ohioans to keep tabs on the use of state resources.”

“There is a lot of money flying around Columbus, and Ohio taxpayers should not have to be lobbyists or politicians to know where their dollars are being spent, particularly at a time when billions in new stimulus dollars from the federal government are flowing into the state,” he said.

Senate Bill 78 would require the state’s director of administrative services to establish the Web site with a searchable database providing access to state employees’ year-to-date gross pay and pay from the most recent pay period; agency expenditures for goods and services; and tax credits granted to business entities.

Comparable provisions were included in the biennial budget approved by lawmakers earlier this year, but Gov. Ted Strickland used his line-item veto ability to remove them from the enacted budget.

For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Vindicator or vindy.com