State Achieves Innovations in Financial Transparency

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Abstract

In January 2007, the comptroller of a large state and her team asked the question: “What can the CPA (certified public accountant) do to help government be more transparent and accountable to taxpayers?” The answer was to post expenditures so that taxpayers could see how their money was being spent to help hold government accountable.

In the “information proliferation era,” shareholders and constituents of organizations of all shapes and sizes are clamoring for more and more information about how decisions are made, where dollars are being spent and how organizations work. However, while most corporations and government agencies have the will to share information with the public, many have yet to find a way. All organizations face the unenviable task of managing huge volumes of data, and these records, more often than not, are stored in different ways in disparate systems scattered across dozens of business units and departments.

The Challenge

Converting mountains of data into actionable information for daily decision-making, and assisting customers, requires enormous effort. Often, data must be collected and reports compiled manually, and even when these processes are automated, organizations often find that their systems generate “multiple versions of the truth.” Plus, disseminating information for consumption poses additional privacy and security challenges: Enough checks and balances must be in place so that sensitive information is not accidentally given out.

Within state governments, many of these business problems fall within the purview of the Office of the State Comptroller — the agency that is the primary keeper of the data, not only on taxes, but also on revenue distribution, budgeting and expenditures. As the volume of data has increased dramatically over the last few years, state comptrollers have been faced with the challenge of not only satisfying their own operational needs but also of meeting regulatory or legislative requests and customers’ demands.

Typical challenges faced by the Office of the State Comptroller include:

• Lack of a “single version of the truth” across the enterprise
• The need to provide more transparency
• An imperative to measure performance within enterprise functions and activities
• The need to segment accounts receivable by delinquency risk to support higher revenue collection

The Office of the State Comptroller in this state sought to devise a solution that would address these four broad business issues. The office selected Deloitte to assist with this effort.

How We Helped

Deloitte delivered a Business Intelligence Solution to the state on an aggressive eight-month schedule. The project delivered in the following key areas: online expenditures database, dashboard for executive and division management, enforcement scoring and ranking, state financial reporting and online state demographics for economic development.

To meet the Office of the State Comptroller‘s broad business needs, Deloitte helped the office’s implementation team develop a tactical data warehouse that would serve as the technological cornerstone of the initiative. This warehouse was designed to initially contain a specified subset of the office’s information, while being scalable enough to accommodate the longer-term objective of encompassing all of the office’s data. It consisted of the following components:

• Data sources: A compilation of all sources of data that needed to be imported into the warehouse.
• Extract transform layer (ETL): The ETL module is the common integration layer that acts as the interface between agency applications and the data warehouse. This module enables integration of data from diverse sources and formats into the atomic data store.
• Data staging area: This module comprises an atomic data store, which is used for data preparation and standardization prior to integration.
• Reporting marts: This component contains data marts that support analytical reporting. The data in these marts are denormalized and use conformed dimensions. Unlike the atomic data in the warehouse, the data in these reporting marts are functionality-focused and aligned with the nature of the analysis for which they will be used.
• Presentation/reporting layers: The reporting/presentation layer consists of the business intelligence tool set that presents the “single version of truth” to those accessing the data in the warehouse. It includes the reports, web pages, scorecards, and dashboards that were constructed as part of this initiative.

Building upon this technological foundation, Deloitte helped the Office of the State Comptroller’s implementation team develop six business-intelligence solutions designed to give internal users and the public appropriate access to timely, relevant, and accurate information. In addition, a seventh deliverable was produced — a strategic, enterprise-wide information management (EIM) road map — designed to help the office build upon the foundation that was laid by the data warehouse and the first six solutions.

As a result of this project, the Comptroller’s Office was recently recognized by a third party government association with an award for having the “Best Technology Solution Serving the Public” within the state.

Solution

With this project, the Office of the State Comptroller demonstrated that the complexities of any enterprise are not insurmountable. Although there is a need to think about information management comprehensively — from the standpoints of organization, processes, data and systems — it is neither necessary nor feasible to address everything at once. The principles of information management may be enterprise principles, but they can be applied in a logical and sequential manner. The solution is a journey, not a single project or a “big bang” event.

This Office of the State Comptroller accomplished much by starting simply: the journey began by posting the departments’ own detailed expenditures online for the public to access via the Web. From there the project progressed to include new technology solutions and an invitation for other departmental entities to participate — all while leveraging existing technology solutions and information assets to stretch program dollars further. Thus far, these efforts have collectively resulted in efficiency savings, effectiveness improvements, and risk reduction — and perhaps most notably, more satisfied constituents.

Related Content: Overview:  U.S. State Government 

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.