Open
Letter to Software Companies
This is an updated
version of the letter which was mailed and faxed to
nearly 100 governmental software manufacturers, including
Microsoft, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, in July 2003.
It is intended to spark the entrepreneurial spirit
of small- to mid-size software manufacturers and give
R & D departments of major software manufacturers
a chance to begin creating the software.
Dear Accounting
Software Manufacturer:
I
would like to inform you of an emerging need and opportunity
in the field of accounting software used by the State
of California.
The State of California
will likely place on the November 2004 ballot an initiative
that calls for the posting of all its finances daily
to the Web.
This is in response
to the idea that I developed as a private citizen
in my run for Los Angeles Mayor, and am actively promoting
throughout California. See www.postthefinances.com.
The idea of posting
all government finances daily to government Web sites
will promote fiscal honesty at all levels of government
and give ordinary citizens an unprecedented degree
of oversight of their elected officials. I anticipate
that California will be the first state to adopt this
idea, and there will soon be many more.
Here is what is needed:
an accounting software program that will complement
whatever such programs are currently used by Californian
government at all levels. The program would need to
have the ability to take interactive accounting information
and convert it to static information in the form of
a simple checkbook register that could be uploaded
with a couple of key strokes to any and all governmental
web sites.
The purpose would
be to show clearly every penny received and every
penny spent.
The program would
need to create a "money trail" for citizens to navigate
their way through governmental Web sites and see all
the daily revenues and expenditures of the city, county,
and state government. It would also need to archive
revenues and expenditures for previous days, in such
a way that each day's finances can be easily accessed,
like an online newspaper archive.
The program needs
to be simple and graphically pleasing, so any nonspecialist
computer user can access the fiscal data quickly.
It could maybe even have in the upper corner of the
checkbook register the yearly budget allotted to the
specific department, and the total expenditure so
far that year.
See the sample "State
of Lincoln"on the postthefinances.com
site at http://www.postthefinances.com/stateoflincoln/index.html
Let me emphasize
again that California is the first state to consider
this kind of "Post the
Finances" model. It can act as a template
for other cities, counties and states to follow. Although
State officials in California have been unresponsive
to my proposal, I anticipate that the citizens of
California will see "Post
the Finances" as a way of restoring
residents' confidence and trust in government. That
trust has been badly damaged by the bad fiscal management
of recent years, which has seen the California budget
deficit soar to $38 billion.
Governor-elect Schwarzenegger
has promised an audit of the state's finances, but
such a one-time audit, although useful and necessary,
is not going to be enough to satisfy the majority
of Californians, who realize they must exercise much
more careful and continuous oversight over what elected
officials and state-appointed bureaucrats do with
taxpayer money.
Since fiscal honesty
in government is a big issue in California at the
moment, I have little doubt that voters will approve
the Post the Finances,
officially known as the "State Revenue and Expenditures
Initiative Statute" initiative. Then the rush will
be on.
Other states, as
well as cities, counties and the federal government,
will also be open to adopting Post
the Finances. I therefore anticipate
that there will soon be a large demand for the kind
of software I have outlined here. It is only a matter
of time before "Post
the Finances" is adopted at all levels
of government, local, state and federal. And all these
government entities will need to purchase the software
necessary to implement the mandate they have received.
I hope you will agree
that this is an exciting possibility that offers your
company the chance to develop a new range of accounting
software.
I warmly invite you
to contact me to discuss this project in more detail.
Respectfully,
