Opening New York’s Books and Records

Dear Colleagues,

Throughout my tenure as New York’s State Comptroller, I have prioritized improving transparency and accountability of public funds. The Office of the State Comptroller oversees, implements, and reports on many aspects of the state’s finances, and has consistently developed new ways to “open” data to the public.

My Open Book New York website, initially launched in 2012, includes millions of financial records, including state payment information by state agency, recipient, and amount, and is updated daily.  The Office of the State Comptroller website also includes several interactive dashboards tracking the finances of public authorities, spending of federal relief dollars and other critical aspects of state finances and operations. All these dashboards are updated regularly and many allow users to download local copies of the data.

We have now launched another interactive tool called Contracts by the Numbers to unlock a vast amount of information related to state procurement. This initiative allows anyone who is interested to drill down on state agency and public authority contracts, including identifying who has the largest dollar value and number of contracts with New York state. With the new tool, contracts can be searched and sorted by agency or authority, vendor, and contract type. This initiative complements the searchable state contracts database available on Open Book New York, which includes 240,000 contracts that have been entered into between state agencies and businesses, not-for-profits, and other entities.

New York State’s procurement oversight function is carried out by the Office of the State Comptroller’s Bureau of Contracts, which reviews and approves many agency contracts, as well as certain contracts for the state’s public authorities. Last calendar year, 26,128 contracts valued at $163 billion were reviewed, and an additional 379 authority contracts worth $4.4 billion were filed. Even with this volume, the annual average turnaround time from review to approval has been approximately six days.  This year, thru June 30, 2024, my office has approved over 12,000 contracts valued at over $301 billion.

The Office of the State Comptroller works hard to meet the needs of the state’s employees, agencies, and vendors, and to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently and effectively, paying special attention to identifying and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse of public resources. We will continue to build on our efforts to improve transparency and ensure accountability over the state’s use of public resources. That’s what good government is all about.

Sincerely,

Thomas P. DiNapoli
New York State Comptroller