We have added a special dataset to our transparency site Open FI$Cal, containing details of the state’s COVID-19 related expenditures through June 2020. With this addition, California residents can now explore in more detail what the state spent money on early in the COVID pandemic, from the almost $30 billion in unemployment benefits that flowed through the state in early 2020 down to the first few hundred thousand dollars spent on contact tracing.
We have worked hard with our partners at the Department of Finance (Finance) to validate the data and match it to the COVID expenditure data departments are reporting to Finance on a regular basis. With this first batch of data up, we’ll turn our attention to more recent expenditures, and new additions to the COVID data will follow.
Getting high-value data to the people of California is one of the core reasons FI$Cal exists, and I’m excited that we can provide this information. As Open FI$Cal continues to mature, it will provide more and more information to help Californians understand how their government spends money, on emergency situations like pandemics and fires, as well as its daily operations. Stay tuned for additional updates!