What your taxes buy

DENVER - It happens a lot. You figure out your taxes, write a check and grumble: “What on earth does the government plan to do with this?”

Colorado Treasurer Cary Kennedy soon may have an answer for you.

Kennedy is working on an interactive program so residents could punch in the tax bracket their family occupies and answer a few questions. Then it would spit out a report detailing what they pay in taxes and what services that money buys.

Treasurer’s staffers are still developing formulas and haven’t set a date when the program — the first of its kind nationwide — will be ready. It should be able to figure out to the dollar what taxpayers are providing to services such as K-12 education, parks and public safety, Kennedy told the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee on Wednesday.

“We would be at the forefront of this effort of really trying to shine a light on state finances,” Kennedy said.

The first-year Democratic treasurer went to the JBC, the committee that crafts the state budget, to ask for $45,000 to implement the project in the fiscal year that starts July 2008. The money would cover consulting costs, development and maintenance of the Web site, as well as publication of a report as part of her government transparency effort.

The JBC won’t make a decision on the funding until early next year, but the smiling, nodding heads of both Democratic and Republican committee members, along with several “wows,” left little doubt how they felt about the idea.

“The more people understand their government and what it does, the more they support it,” said Colorado Springs Democratic Sen. John Morse, who is expected to be appointed to the six-member JBC today.

Kennedy said she plans to build an interactive site where taxpayers can click on the county they live in and see how much state and federal money goes to their community.

The State Taxpayer Accountability Report, new this year, is on the treasurer’s Web site (www.colorado.gov/treasury). It tells what the state spends, gets, owns and owes.