GOVERNMENT

2.no

Find the Budget!

Another www.RobertDyer.net Exclusive!!!

Can you find the Montgomery County budget that your tax dollars fund? It's not available in public in print. So let's check the county's "award-winning," and "popular" website....

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/

OK, we're at the home page. Nothing about the budget here.

Let's try this link at the bottom, which says "Additional Information About Important Issues and Topics," because the budget is pretty important, isn't it?

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgtmpl.asp?url=/content/home/home2.asp

Hmm. Nothing about the budget here, either.

Try clicking on "Departments" to find the budget department.

Now click on OMB.

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/ombtmpl.asp?url=/content/omb/index.asp

Nothing about reading the budget on this page.

I'll click on a link for the FY2010 budget from last July(!!).

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/ombtmpl.asp?url=/content/omb/fy10/appr/psp_toc.asp

It's taken forever, and a lot of independent thinking on my part. But I've finally found a budget.

Oh, no! The citizen can only download about 100 large PDF files in order to read the county budget. That's Web 1.0 from 10 years ago!

Isn't it time the county website was updated to Web 2.0, where citizens can study the budget in HTML or Flash or some other realtime format? And made available in print so that those without home computers can review it as well by picking up readily accessible copies at local libraries?

Let's turn Government 2.no into Government 2.0. Unless someone fears the public having easy access to how their taxpayer dollars are being spent by the County Council...