Macomb County Creates New Financial Dashboard
Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel announced Monday that the county is now presenting detailed county financial information in a user-friendlier manner on its Web site.
Hackel said the county is collaborating with Munetrix, a Keego Harbor-based information source that provides easy-to-understand access to sometimes confusing financial information for municipal governments.
Hackel said the move makes Macomb the first county in the state to implement the tool in a comprehensive format.
Munetrix will create the county's financial "dashboard" on www.macombcountymi.gov. The dashboard will include the previous four years of officially audited financial information, the current-year budget and future-year forecasts. The dashboard went live Friday, July 15.
Said Bob Kittle, co-founder of Munetrix: "It's exciting to see communities like Macomb being proactive and embracing a system like ours that will document their fiscal position well in advance of the Governor's Oct. 1, 2011 compliance requirement for transparency. Munetrix has dynamic software that presents our financial information in charts and graphs that people who don't have accounting backgrounds can easily comprehend and understand. Citizens can go to our website and get a thorough illustration of Macomb County's financial position."
Hackel said that while the county has posted various financial reports and documents on its Website for several years, the information can be a bit imposing.
"Our current-year budget document contains 268 pages of complex spreadsheets," Hackel said. "The Munetrix software will put this info in easy-to-follow formats."
Macomb County will be using Munetrix's highest level access license, allowing the county to edit data, build future budgets, predict its fiscal indicator score, and build lists of peer groups for comparative analysis.
By providing additional layers of information, Hackel said Macomb County's new dashboard goes beyond what Gov. Rick Snyder and the Department of Treasury will soon be requiring of municipalities as part of the state's Economic Vitality Incentive Program.
"We have taken a big step forward in empowering the public and giving citizen's easy access to meaningful financial data," Hackel said. "Our dashboard will help citizens gauge how their County government is performing."
