N.Y. MTA creates online budget transparency portal

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) created a new online budget portal that allows users to view MTA budget information in an open, user-friendly way online.

The online portal includes short explainers with an overview of the budget process, key elements of the MTA’s capital and operating budgets, and information on how each budget works.

“Our goal is to make budget information as clear and approachable as possible,” “The public has a right to access information on the sources or uses of the funds that are so vital to our operations, and we want to make getting this information as easy as possible,” said MTA Chairman/CEO Patrick J. Foye. “If there are ways we can build on this portal to make it even easier to use, we’re ready to listen and improve it further.”

The new portal also includes an interactive budget visualization, which shares key tables from the budget books in a downloadable format. The interactive budget visualization includes:

• Where the Dollars Come From/Go.
• How We Balance the Budget and Plan for the Future.
• Capital Commitments.
• Statement of Operations by Agency (Accrual Basis and Cash Basis).
• Statement of Operations by Category (Accrual Basis and Cash Basis).

Information in these segments has long been provided to the public via printed budget books distributed at board meetings and posted online. The new budget portal makes this information available for the first time in a digital-friendly way.

The creation of the budget portal coincides with additional ways the MTA is improving transparency and better ways for the public to find out about MTA’s performance.