City Announces New Budget Application

August 5, 2013

Cedar Hills is pleased to unveil a new budget application, which helps residents obtain detailed financial data from over ten years of financial statements. This application allows residents to see more detail than the budget document provides and to generate graphs showing yearly trends. City staff can upload new financial documents each year and will be able to provide annotations to clarify areas that may not be easily understood.

Created by Council Member Daniel Zappala and the BYU Open Source Lab, with the help of Code For America, the application is user-friendly and versatile. While the main page shows an overview of the city’s finances, users can also drill down and see details of revenues and expenditures for every fund.
“The city has worked hard to be transparent with regards to finances, but I felt we could do better,” stated Council Member Zappala. “Like most cities, we release a detailed budget showing revenues and expenditures for each of the city funds, broken down by category in a spreadsheet format. With the help of students, I created this application as a way for residents to easily visualize our financial information, while also providing more detail.”

The budget application is now available for use and may be found online at http://budget.cedarhills.org. Residents are encouraged to review the application and submit any concerns or ideas for additional features to Council Member Zappala at dzappala@cedarhills.org.