Dakota Beacon

Bismarck - Today the North Dakota Policy Council launched Sunshine on Cities, an interactive website containing vital budget data for most cities and towns in North Dakota. The website is very similar to Sunshine on Schools, which was launched in April 2008. Click HERE to watch the official launch.

"This gives North Dakotans another tool to understand their local government," said NDPC executive director Brett Narloch. "We think that providing budget data to citizens in an easily searchable and quick way will get them interested in learning about how their local tax dollars are being spent."

The website, www.sunshineoncities.org, allows users to compare mill levels, revenue, overall spending, and spending by major categories among other things. It also ranks all of the cities in various categories.

Narloch added, "Government transparency cuts across ideological and partisan lines. Citizens are scrambling to understand why their property tax bill keeps getting higher and higher. We felt that people just didn't know how much money their cities are spending and where they're spending it. Information is power. We are trying to empower taxpayers."

All of the budget data comes directly from local government audits. The project is on-going, meaning that new data will be added to the website as it becomes available.

Visit Sunshine on Cities at www.sunshineoncities.org. Watch the launch by clicking HERE.