New Website Shines Spotlight on State Contracts

Today, the State of Nebraska introduced a new website to bring greater transparency and accountability to state contracts. With its launch, citizens are able to monitor and review state contracts from any computer or mobile device with internet access free of charge. Nebraskans are now able to search contracts by vendor, agency, and dollar amount.

NebraskaSpending.gov currently provides a checkbook of all state expenditures, providing meaningful transparency to the state’s checkbook. The new website, operated by the Department of Administrative Services, expands on this work by bringing transparency to state contracts, which compromise a large portion of the state’s debits. The website provides links to contracts as well as amendments to those contracts.

“Contracts comprise a major part of our spending and our delegation of government authority," explained Senator Sue Crawford (District 45, Bellevue) who introduced LB 429 (2013), creating the contract transparency website. “Furthermore, contracts are public information. This website makes that public information truly publicly available."

I appreciate the diligent work of Bo Botelho and his colleagues at the Department of Administrative Services and the cooperation of all the state agencies that makes this new level of transparency possible. It will be up to citizens, journalists, business owners, and fellow lawmakers to use that information well."

“I applaud Senator Crawford for her work with the Department of Administrative Services on their effort to bring transparency to state government contracts through the implementation of LB 429," said Senator Heath Mellow, a co-sponsor of the original legislation. “When public officials talk about government data, it is important to remember that the data doesn’t belong to one agency or any one branch of government because government data is the people’s data."

“I want to thank Sen. Crawford for securing passage of this legislation. I was proud to be an active supporter of the legislation as it moved forward. I continue to be strongly committed to making as much state financial information as possible available to Nebraska taxpayers," State Treasurer Don Stenberg said.

The new website is available online at https://statecontracts.nebraska.gov/