OpenTheBooks

OpenTheBooks.com is an American nonprofit organization based in the Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge, Illinois. It describes itself as a transparency group devoted to posting online all the disclosed spending of every level of government across the United States.^[1] Their oversight reports on government spending have been featured in multiple different news outlets including ABC Good Morning America, Fox News and published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, and USA Today.

History

OpenTheBooks.com was founded in 2011 by its Chief Executive Officer Adam Andrzejewski, an Illinois entrepreneur with former United States Senator Dr. Tom Coburn as the Honorary Chairman. In 2006, legislation co-sponsored by then-senator Barack Obama and then-senator Tom Coburn — the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 — was passed to allow public access to the spending of the United States Federal Government which makes the work on the federal government for OpentheBooks possible.^[2]

In 2013, OpenTheBooks sued then-Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka for all disclosed state checkbook transactions. The comptroller had rejected the group's Freedom of Information Act request calling it an 'undue burden.' After public backlash^{[3] [4] [5]} the Comptroller ultimately released the data from fiscal year 2005 forward in 2014.

In 2014, OpenTheBooks became the first and only organization to publish all disclosed federal spending including: salaries, contracts, grants, direct payments, and farm subsidies. The organization also created a Mobile App which provides access to all the data collected and was recognized on the editorial page of the The Wall Street Journal.^{[6] [7]} In 2015, state checkbook spending was added to both the website and mobile app. Between 2015 and 2017 the group has published 11 oversight reports on federal agency spending.

Data Capture

The mission of OpenTheBooks is to collect and post all disclosed government spending at every level across America. In an article published at Forbes in 2016, the group claimed to have successfully captured $80 out of every $100 dollars spent. In a speech at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York City, OpentheBooks CEO Adam Andrzejewski described the data capture as 15 million public employee salaries, 48 of 50 state checkbooks, and nearly all disclosed federal spending since 2000.^[8]

Oversight Reports

OpenTheBooks has successfully completed multiple financial reports on different government agencies and programs. Notably, the organization has helped to uncover fraudulence and wasteful spending at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Other reports focused on: farm subsidies in New York City, Chicago, and Washington D.C.;^[9] $24.2 billion in failed lending at the Small Business Administration;^[10] quantified $1.2 trillion in federal payments to the top 100 of the Fortune 500;^[11] found $92 million in high-end furniture purchases by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;^[12] the Export-Import Bank of U.S.;^[13] quantified $4.5 billion in federal agency spending on public relations;^[14] found $1.5 billion spent by non-military federal agencies outside the Department of Defense on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment;^[15] quantified federal payments of nearly $27 billion into America’s Sanctuary Cities;^[16] and found $42 billion in federal subsidies, tax-breaks and payments flowed into the eight Ivy League colleges.^[17]

Veterans Affairs Oversight Report

As the initial scandal at the Veterans broke in 2014, OpenTheBooks worked closely with reporters at USA Today to provide accurate numbers in uncovering ill-gotten bonuses in the troubled facilities, by utilizing the data collected by OpenTheBooks on VA officials salaries since 2007.^[18] This reporting helped create the environment that forced VA Secretary Eric Shinseky to rescind the $9,345 bonus of embattled Director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System Sharon Helman. On June 10, 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 426-00 to end the practice of VA bonuses.^[19]

In their oversight report, published in May 2016, titled The VA Scandal Two Years Later Open the Books uncovered $20 million dollars spent on costly artwork during a period of time in which over 1,000 veterans died while waiting for doctor appointments. The work in this report was used by multiple news sources including Good Morning America^[20], The Hill^[21], Reason Magazine ^[22], Real Clear Politics^[23] and was even featured on ABC World News Tonight. ^[24]

In August of 2016, U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (Iowa), Senate Judiciary Chairman, wrote an oversight letter using data from OpenTheBooks to the Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Robert McDonald demanding to know: Who authorized the art work, how much was budgeted for artwork, what was actually spent on artwork, and what, if any, rules were violated?^[25] By late August, Secretary McDonald responded with an apology and instituted new rules: "We acknowledge the poor decision making regarding art work purchases... The VA's new policy on the Acquisition of Artwork and Decorative items was published Department wide on August 18, 2016. This includes cost thresholds and approval levels for purchases..."^[26]

References