Glendale launches 'OpenBook' financial dashboard to let residents drill into city spending

Glendale budget staff demonstrated an interactive online transparency tool called OpenBook during the Jan. 13 workshop, showing dashboards for monthly sales tax, major fund snapshots, an operating “follow your money” dashboard, a capital‑projects explorer (including a 10‑year CIP) and an interactive CIP map. The tool integrates with the city’s Tyler Munis financial system and Questica budget software and, staff said, updates automatically each night.

Budget Administrator Jonathan Hill and others showed attendees how users can filter by department, project and invoice to drill down from adopted budgets to individual vendor payments, and how the map identifies project location, adopted budget and total project spending. Staff said OpenBook will replace the existing “follow your money” portion of the site and that the public link would go live that afternoon.

Council members asked about historical data import (staff said 2021 was used as the first full year after the city migrated systems), the ability to show project statuses on the map (staff said status information had to be actively maintained and will be improved over time) and whether the tool can help answer public record requests. Staff said the system is substantially automated and will accelerate reporting; some state data (like TPT reporting) remain monthly from third‑party sources and will continue to follow those schedules.

Next steps: the OpenBook link will be posted on glendaleaz.gov and the finance page; staff will continue improving project status indicators, consider user training materials and demonstrate the tool again during the 5‑year forecast presentation.

Representative quote from the demo: “OpenBook is an interactive public facing dashboard that pulls directly from our financial system,” staff said.