Idea #38 – Public Visual Budget

Report Status: Fully Reviewed

Researched by: Matthew Gasbarro

Original Idea as Submitted

Increase transparency in budgeting process and reporting; create a visual budget/visual software program similar to Arlington and other towns. Put more public data online to improve town employee efficiency other than responding to in person requests.

Other ideas included in this report

  • None

Idea intent

The idea is to increase transparency on Town budgeting, revenue projection, and expenses by providing a website to visualize such data.

Weighted Final Score: 33 (Financial Impact: 0, Operational Impact: 4, Time Scale: 2, Ease of Implementation: 4)

Background Information

The Town of Arlington implemented a visual budget website at to offer its residents visual navigation of the town’s budget, expenses, and funds. The Visual Budget software then became templated by VisGov for use by other municipalities. It is an open-source software (free) offered that towns can deploy on their websites as a WordPress plugin if supported. Town websites that do not support it, such as Belmont’s vendor CivicPlus, deploy the Visual Budget software on a separate website that is linked from the main town website.

MA towns using Visual Budget
Arlington
Ashland
Bedford
Bourne
Cohasset
Essex
Harwich
Mansfield
Melrose
Middleborough
Northampton
Sharon

The software imports Excel or CSV formatted data sets into its software. It does not (yet) directly connect with MUNIS or DLS Municipal Databank.

Arlington Visual Budget website https://arlingtonvisualbudget.org/

Recommendations

  • In keeping with the Town of Belmont’s goal for offering greater transparency to its residents and fostering civic engagement, implement the minimal cost Visual Budget by VisGov either through:

    • Two-year full-service cost of $3,000 Visual Budget Starter Kit through VisGov includes:

      • Registration of belmont.visgov.com domain

      • Deployment of a Belmont branded visual budget site

      • 8 hours of assistance preparing data for import into Visual Budget

      • Hosting for two years on their servers

      • Updates and maintenance for two years

      • After two years, $325/year for domain registration and hosting

    • Deploy Visual Budget open-source WordPress plugin on WordPress compatible hosted website

  • Monitor and track website analytics to evaluate utilization.

Next Steps

  • Select Board identify the responsible department or committee to maintain and update the visual budget website with new financial data

  • Consult with Website Renewal Committee for possible inclusion on new town website

  • Consult with Information Technology Advisory Committee on deployment

Further Reading