Appropriations staff demonstrate OMB financial transparency tools; committee members request follow‑up training and carryover balances

After the budget presentation, committee members requested help locating appropriation and fund-balance detail online. Appropriations staff led a step‑by‑step walkthrough of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) financial-transparency website, demonstrating tiles for financial transparency, monthly reports, trial balances and budget detail.

Levi and staff showed members how to filter by agency and fiscal year, how to view appropriation lines (salary, operating) and how to find special‑fund balances such as the Secretary of State's general services fund (fund 263) using the trial-balance tile. Staff noted a difference between the financial-transparency interface on laptops and iPads and suggested the table-of-contents/links in the budget detail can help navigate long PDF-style budget documents.

Why it matters: Committee members said the site is a working tool to review appropriation spending-to-date and fund balances; staff agreed to provide carryover estimates for programs and to run a focused training session on site navigation. "I asked about, someone from OMB, You know, giving us maybe a little training session on how to navigate through the OMB site and finding information on details and funds funding information," Chairman Wanzek said; staff replied they could walk the committee through the site "when committee work is done or whenever you guys have time."

Staff agreed to provide estimated remaining balances as of June 30 and January 1 for agencies that request those numbers so the committee can better judge carryover requests in the one‑time funding sections.

Discussion versus decision: This was a procedural demonstration and did not contain appropriation actions; committee members and staff planned follow‑up training and data requests.