Ranking the States on Financial Transparency
Every state except Idaho requires its elected officials and other significant policymakers to submit annual public financial disclosures. In Massachusetts, these disclosure forms are called Statements of Financial Interest (“SFIs”). Such disclosures are an essential tool for the public and press to protect against the potential intrusion of conflicts of interest into public policymaking.
Pioneer developed this data application to compare how states make these financial disclosures public. The goal of this project is to encourage the public to demand that their states institute practices that will lead to greater transparency. We applaud the nine highly-transparent states with perfect scores: Alabama, Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia.
Pioneer ranked each state based on attributes weighted as follows:
| Attribute: | Weight |
| Proof of Identification of Requestor Not Required | 30% |
| Agency Not Required to Notify Filer of Requestor’s Name | 30% |
| Posted Online | 10% |
| Posted Online and Free Open to View Without Establishing Account | 10% |
| Requestor’s Name and/or Personal Information Not Required | 10% |
| Filer Must Submit Disclosures Electronically | 5% |
| Electronically Searchable Disclosure Form Available | 5% |
| TOTAL | 100% |
We used a color scale to compare state scores with dark green being highly transparent and red meaning inadequate public access. You can hover over each state to view the detail of the scoring
The data is as of April 2019. Pioneer Institute intends to update this data annually.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/massachusetts.population#!/vizhome/SFI_Totals/Map?publish=yes
