Comptroller Launches “Open Checkbook,” Highlighting Whom City Is Paying

Milwaukee City Hall. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Have you ever wondered who the City of Milwaukee is cutting checks to?

A new open data website from the City Comptroller now lists every payment the city made last year.

“Our goal is to share with our constituents how taxpayer dollars are spent. Giving everyone direct access to the data helps paint a fuller picture of expenditures and create a shared understanding of our investments and priorities,” said independently-elected Comptroller Aycha Sawa in a statement.

Dubbed “Open Checkbook,” the portal includes 94,282 payments to businesses and other entities the city made in 2022. It does not include individual employee payments.

The $30 million reserve fund payment the city made to its pension system last year is visible on Feb. 4. Similarly, the $3,000 the Department of Public Works paid Urban Milwaukee for a grant-funded banner advertising agreement for the expanded recycling program is visible (as is the unfortunate reality, for this publication, that other outlets have received far more advertising revenue from other programs).

“Milwaukee’s Open Checkbook offers additional awareness and understanding of the work of city government. I applaud the Comptroller for adding transparency, accountability, and efficiency to the work of the City of Milwaukee,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson.

The portal was developed in partnership with OpenGov. The Silicon Valley government technology firm opened a Milwaukee office in 2020 at the Global Water Center and has a state-subsidy agreement to locate more than 100 employees in it. No payments to OpenGov appear in the new portal, which launched this month and does not currently include any 2023 data.

“We are proud to partner with the Comptroller’s Office in developing the City of Milwaukee’s Open Checkbook. Milwaukee is home to many OpenGov team members, and we all share the Comptroller’s mission to power more effective and accountable government. We couldn’t be more excited for the launch and to work to ensure the long-term success of this initiative,” said Claudia Arriaga, the company’s vice president of customer success.

The portal allows users to download all of the data in addition to browsing it online.

“This portal is meant for everyone we serve across the City of Milwaukee – for those who want to go on a hunt, and the people who want to download the datasets and perform their own analyses,” said Common Council President José G. Pérez.

There is one payment to watch for next year: new city photography. The Open Checkbook landing page features an otherwise attractive image of the city that is at least a decade old, as revealed by its inclusion of a building Northwestern Mutual started demolishing in 2013. Searching the portal reveals the city spent nearly $12,000 on photography-related expenses last year, most of it with Front Room Photography in Bay View.

Interested in more than money? In addition to the comptroller’s role as the city’s chief financial officer, the comptroller functions as the city’s auditor and the office regularly publishes its findings on its website.