The California State Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 598, the Open Financial Statements Act. The bill would establish a 9-member commission called the Open Financial Statement Commission in the Treasurer’s office. The commission would be tasked with contracting with vendors to build taxonomies suitable for public agency financial filings and create a software tool that enables a public agency to easily create machine readable documents. The bill would require the commission, by January 1, 2021, to report to the Legislature and make recommendations regarding how and whether to transition financial reporting by state and local agencies to a machine readable format.
Read the legislation.
