Special to the American
Last week St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Green made City audits available for taxpayers and the public to view online on the City’s website at www.stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/comptroller.
The advantage to having audits on the internet, the comptroller said, is convenience. If a person wanted a copy of an audit before, they had to contact the comptroller’s office to either pick it up or have it faxed. Now, the public can access the City’s audits with internet access, which is freely available at public libraries among other places.
“We’re always striving to take advantage of technology and be progressive in the way we operate,” Green said.
“Increasing the people’s access to their government was an easy decision because it’s the right thing to do. It just makes sense to have these public documents available online to the taxpayers in an easily searchable format.”
The decision to put audits online proved simpler than actually getting them there. It was more than a year ago when the office first inquired about the procedure to get audits online. At that time, the City was in the process of hiring a company to revamp the City website. It was deemed best to wait until the new system was chosen and implemented because it was unknown how the audit database would transfer into the new system. As the process moved along, the City’s web developers found it technically possible to create the database now and transfer it into the new system later.
“This has been in the works for some time now and it’s great to finally have it up and running,” said Sedrick Blake, internal audit executive.
“It gives the taxpayers greater access to how their money is being spent by City departments – and if that money is being spent in an appropriate manner.”
The comptroller’s online audit database features reports from fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Additional audit reports will be added to the website when they are completed. Any report not on the website is available to the public by contacting the comptroller’s office at audits@stlouiscity.com.
Anyone who does not own or have access to an internet-capable computer can use one free at any of the city’s 17 public library branches. For a list of those locations and hours, call (314) 241-2288 or visit www.slpl.org.
To access the comptroller’s online audit database, visit www.stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/comptroller