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Uncovering good stories in local government April 12, 2013
Jeff Porter Special Projects Director
Association of Health Care Journalists [email protected]
Photo credit: Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune
} Government vendors
} Taxes/fees businesses pay (or don’t)
} Infrastructure
Mapled from Flickr
} Utilities
} Regulation/inspection/licensure
• Three examples: � Budgets � Contracts � Taxes
} Budgets: At least three years to see how well the government projects its revenues and expenses. Major changes by themselves can be stories.
} Purchasing and bid rules. You need those to see the government is following its own rules when awarding contracts.
} Request for proposals. These are the equivalent of bids, but are much looser and generally cover architectural, engineering and consulting services. This is an easy area for officials to favor friends.
} Get the list of all vendors who sold goods and services to the local government in the past three years. Get the total amount bought from each vendor and the detail, preferably in a database.
} Financial disclosure reports. Get the financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest reports required of officials.
} BONUS: Tax lists – biggest taxpayers, biggest tax delinquents (From IRE Journal, November/December 2003)
} More than normal increase or decrease. } Patterns over time – are expenditures or
revenues sinking or rising? } Look back in time: How well do “projected”
budget items match with actual revenue/expenditure?
} How does this impact business? Taxes or fees might go up. Vendors might gain or lose business.
} Documents to know: ◦ Actual contracts ◦ Totals spent ◦ Billing ◦ Check register (so to speak) ◦ Bids and accompanying documents
} Example: Wireless phone expenses } Began with curiosity: “I began to wonder: How
much can all these cell phones cost taxpayers?”
} Records requested – person, position, phone number, amounts spent
} Looked at big biggest bills, obtained detailed records
} Result: High impact story profiling abuse of cell phones and lax of oversight.
(Mike Mansur, Kansas City Star, in IRE Journal)
JonJon2k8 from Flickr
} Profile the top local government contractors in your locale.
} Which local government departments spent most with vendors, and how?
} How much campaign cash from those associated with local contractors to local officials?
} Compare documents – payments to businesses vs. work performed.
} Is the contractor inspected by local, state or federal agencies (OSHA, Labor, Health, Code)? What’s the outcome?
} What businesses are the biggest taxpayers in your county or city? How are they doing?
} What businesses are the biggest tax delinquents? Any government contracts on the list?
} Who are the big tax-exempt employers? Look at their 990s for financial status.
} Check out state and federal tax liens – filed with the circuit clerk’s office. These can be signs of trouble for a local business.
JonLoach from Flickr
} State tax collection data: www.dfa.arkansas.gov/offices/exciseTax/salesanduse/Pages/TaxCollectionData.aspx
} Internal Revenue Service Tax Stats: www.irs.gov/uac/Tax-Stats-2
} U.S. Census Bureau governments page: www.census.gov/govs/
} Arkansas Public Services Commission Tax Division: www.apscservices.info/taxdivision.asp
} Tax Policy Center: www.taxpolicycenter.org/stateandlocal/tax-and-budget/index.cfm
Jeff Porter Special Projects Director Association of Health Care Journalists [email protected] 573-884-5477 Thanks for coming!
