During the regular meeting Thursday, the county’s commissioners unanimously approved a 5-year contract with OpenGov Inc. for its Budget Builder and Intelligence software at a rate of $45,690 per year.
Eric DiProspero of OpenGov gave a presentation on software that will enable the county’s department heads to review reports and look at raw numbers in real time, rather than relying on traditional spreadsheets and PDF files.
“It brings the information to life,” DiProspero said, demonstrating pie charts and bar graphs with budget data from other counties and municipalities already contracting with OpenGov.
The software Cambria County will use also is used by Allegheny County, the city of Pittsburgh and the District of Columbia, DiProspero said, and it also enables the public to engage with where their tax dollars are going.
County Controller Ed Cernic Jr. said this type of system is something his office has been looking into for years to streamline communication between row offices.
It likely will take a lot of staff time and paperwork out of responses to certain right-to-know requests, Cernic said, while providing information to taxpayers.
“This is one more step toward transparency in county government finances,” he said.
“We want to be able to make county finances as available to the public as we can.”
Cernic said the software also will enable officials to look at increases in their budgets for items like overtime and adjust those costs sooner rather than later.
Once the program is up and running, which Cernic hopes happens before the end of the year, a link to the real-time transactions in Cambria County’s budget will be available on the county’s website.
Chief Clerk Michael Gelles said the 2018 budget process has already started, but the software will enable department heads to better keep track of their accounts.
In addition, Gelles hopes to upload county budgets from previous years so elected officials and the public can see historical trends in expenses and revenues.
©2017 The Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown, Pa.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
