Website becomes more transparent and accessible 

OKLAHOMA CITY — The State of Oklahoma officially launched today the new OKStateStat.ok.gov website, which looks beyond the numbers to align state dollars with Oklahoma’s priorities.

“OKStateStat.ok.gov is a tremendous tool for Oklahomans to hold us in state government accountable for performance in all areas of government,” said Governor Mary Fallin. “We’ve set the bar high on our goals, and we will be working hard to attain them. This website will help hold ourselves accountable as a state government. Policymakers and the public can visit OKStateStat.ok.gov to see where we need to go as a state and what measurements will determine our success in getting there.”

OKStateStat.ok.gov is Oklahoma’s performance-informed budgeting website, offering a unique interactive view of how state government uses resources to achieve meaningful results. In short, it helps show if the State of Oklahoma is using its money to best achieve its goals.

“We’re moving forward with transparency and accountability with OKStateStat.ok.gov,” said Secretary of Finance, Administration and Information Technology Preston L. Doerflinger. “This is an important initiative for government and Oklahomans to show exactly how we match the money to the goals. People will get a good sense of how the state is performing and where it needs to improve.”

Gov. Fallin and Secretary Doerflinger as her lead budget negotiator and the other members of her Cabinet have been pushing this innovative way of state budgeting for years as a fiscal philosophy that allocates funds based on data-driven projections of measurable spending results.

“It’s been a major shift away from a traditional planning and budgeting approach based on incremental changes to the previous year’s budget,” said Doerflinger, who also serves as the director of OMES, the state’s central finance and operations agency. “Instead of doing the same thing every year and expecting a different result, performance-informed budgeting allows us to look across programs throughout the state and make better informed decisions about programs that are successful.”

Gov. Fallin in 2015 announced the strategic vision for building responsible government by measuring the performance of state entities. The effort to align budget dollars with measurable priorities so policymakers can use performance measures to make informed decisions has been in the works for some time.

Now, through the newest version of OKStateStat.ok.gov, all Oklahomans can do the same comparisons and see what should be driving those decisions.

The website matches financial and performance information to Gov. Fallin’s five statewide goals: Healthy Citizens and Strong Families, Safe Citizens and Secure Communities, Educated Citizens and Exemplary Schools, Prosperous Citizens and Thriving Economy, and Effective Services and Accountable Government.

Users can click on one of the goals and drill down, looking at how budgets match up with 52 statewide programs and more than 170 performance objectives. For example, users can select the goal of Healthy Citizens and Strong Families, drill down to the statewide program of snuffing out “Tobacco Use” and see how that goal is aligned with financial and performance information.

The launch of the revamped OKStateStat.ok.gov is part of an effort to publicly show how state money is aligned with state goals. As state agencies become more aware of the website and learn how to report their budgets so that priorities are clearly stated, the website will become more robust with time.

OKStateStat.ok.gov was developed and is administered by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services under the leadership of Gov. Fallin and her Cabinet.