The North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) is building on its commitment to strong stewardship for our region by providing greater transparency through easy online access to more detailed financial data. NTMWD is organizing this important information in a way that makes it easier for our communities to understand and analyze – further underscoring our dedication to rigorous financial management. In addition, sharing more of our traditional financial data on the NTMWD website means the organization is eligible to apply for recognition under the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ Transparency Stars program which recognizes local governments for going above and beyond in their transparency efforts.
The new Financial Transparency webpage combines numerous financial documents (many of which were already available online) with new visualizations, summaries, downloadable data and other helpful information into a single online location. This concentration of data includes budgets, expenditures and revenue charts, comprehensive annual financial reports, check registers, strategic financial plans and links to archived data.
While the Texas Transparency Stars program encourages greater access to information, it also emphasizes that information be straightforward and allow for users to easily perform basic analysis on the data. For example, users can now download a spreadsheet of our annual budget or check registers which provides the ability to search and examine specific data. NTMWD also provides a comparison chart showing the last five years of expense budgets by system. These are just a few ways the District has “opened its books” to share its financial resources with the communities we serve.
The new webpage qualifies NTMWD to apply for the first transparency star, Traditional Finances, which encompasses all the activities most governments undertake. It is the foundational step, and all entities have to meet the requirements for this first star before applying for the other four which include contracts and procurement, economic development, public pensions and debt obligations. NTMWD will build upon this initial effort to include greater online access to the resources required in these other areas.
Through providing the additional online data to pursue this first Transparency Star recognition, the District adds to its financial transparency by further demonstrating a commitment to responsibly manage public resources today and into the future.