State budget watchers can now find extensive detail online

Citizens and advocates with a stake in the state budget can now find a wealth of information from a high-altitude overview to minute agency details online.The website, open.nv.gov, has links to not only the line-item budget but the new Priorities and Performance Based Budget.The line item budget is the traditional report listing all agencies and their current and proposed spending. It consumes 3,414 pages if printed out. It starts off with an overview of where the state gets its money and how it spends it.Director of Administration Jeff Mohlenkamp said the Priorities and Performance Based Budget is a new approach designed to lay out the core functions, objectives and goals of different departments, divisions and agencies. It also links those to performance standards designed to let not only the agencies but the public see how well their government is performing.Those interested can look at how much of the state’s resources is committed to different core functions of government from public safety to education to human services. By clicking on each of those functions, they can check out specific services in detail.Or viewers can look at the budget by department instead of function and, by just clicking on the different departments, drill down to look at each division and agency, how much they spent and what they spend it on. They can also compare the proposed budget to the existing budget at every level.Mohlenkamp said there still is a lot of work to do in the performance based budget but that his agencies are committed to adding more detail, refining it and making it more user friendly so that Nevadans can see what their state government is doing.He said everyone interested in checking out the website — from advocates to politicians to agency officials and individual citizens — is welcome to comment, criticize and make suggestions. They can do that on the main budget office page at budget.nv.us by clicking on “feedback” at the bottom right-hand corner of the page.