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March 1, 2013

State treasurer moves into age of computers

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — The last two state treasurers have made moving the office into the computer age a reality. Scott Meacham and Ken Miller have pushed AC in the Capitol office.

Dr. Miller has taken transparency to another level. This week, the state’s check registry — including daily deposits and payments — were put online for taxpayers to review.

Information can be found on state agencies, including higher education. Deposits are detailed by day and by agency. Individual taxpayers are not named. Payments to state employees and vendors also are available.

The onlyine checkbook contains almost six million expenditures made since July 2007 and some 200,000 revenue collection entries. The online registry was made easier when House Bill 1086 passed giving the state more latitutde in electronic checking with employees and vendors.

We tried Treasurer Miller’s registry and found it easy to use. It gives taxpayers the same amount of information that agencies and legislators have in real time.

“This user-friendly tool, which many will find is as easy to use as their own checkbook, is a great complement to Open Books,” Miller told reporters this week.

It’s easy to use, but we find the scale a bit different than our own checkbooks. How many of us routinely have a $354,981,014.16 routine deposit?

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