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State Auditor offers way to track local American Rescue Plan spending

Courtesy of McGuiness campaign

State Auditor Kathy McGuiness launches a website allowing Delawareans to track the federal money coming into the state from the American Rescue Plan.

McGuiness is working with county and local governments and school districts to help them show how they spend their federal COVID relief funds.

The website will host a secure online portal that’s powered by OpenGov, and it will allow government officials to enter their ARP spending quickly and efficiently every week.

The site then provides easily read graphics for the public to review and compare the expenditures. It’s a completely voluntary process for governments and school districts. Already Newark, Lewes, and Dewey Beach are on board.

McGuiness says this is all about accountability.

"It's not about one individual entity, it's about all of us together to tell a story about transparency because I think we should be first in transparency and I think we should be first in accountability," said McGuiness. "So this is an opportunity for us as well as for elected officials to answer to their constituency."

McGuiness says there are other benefits.

"It reduces public record requests they say by 50%, it reduces the manual reporting up to 90%, but it's statewide accountability and transparency in regards to these ARP funds, how they're spent," said McGuiness. "It is on the spentding side, not the influx side, and I think it's going to save a lot of headaches and hassles on the front end."

The initiative is titled Project Gray Fox, and McGuiness expects the tracker to be up and running around the time the federal funds start coming in this summer. 

It will be available on the Auditor’s Office website.

Joe brings over 20 years of experience in news and radio to Delaware Public Media and the All Things Considered host position. He joined DPM in November 2019 as a reporter and fill-in ATC host after six years as a reporter and anchor at commercial radio stations in New Castle and Sussex Counties.
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