The financial transactions for the Town of Fountain Hills, as well as most other government jurisdictions in Arizona, are available for citizen review online through a website hosted by the State of Arizona.

Open Books is the program and can be found at openbooks.az.gov. The listing for the participating jurisdictions is on the home page. Just find “Fountain Hills” and click in.

All warrants paid by the Town are there, even down to as little as 11-cents. The site has records for the Town dating back to the 2012/2013 Fiscal Year. The site is maintained by the Arizona Department of Administration, General Accounting Office (ADOA-GAO).

According to the site introduction, “The State of Arizona is committed to providing interested parties accessible financial information. The Portal provides usable, understandable information about revenues and spending financial transactions processed by the State of Arizona, including any participating counties, cities and towns, as well as state universities, community colleges and local school districts. The Portal includes various financial reports as well as links to other sites providing detailed information regarding State spending.

“County and municipal government information featured on the Portal is provided by the respective local governments. Any questions should be directed to the originating government. For transparency data on a local government not listed on this site, we recommend visiting that entity’s website.”

Town Finance Director David Pock said the Town provides updated information for the site on a monthly basis. Pock also said the Town is in the midst of an effort to improve online public access to financial information. Over the past year the town has been working with ClearGov, Inc. to update software to develop and present budget and financial documents. The 2023 budget plan is presented on the ClearGov software.

Pock said that will be expanded early in the new fiscal year to include all the transaction data now available through Open Books’ program. He said that could save the Town the $1,000 annual fee to Open Books if it maintains the information locally.

“The more information we put on the website the better and more efficient it is for staff,” Pock said.

The Town website currently provides financial data and reports including Town budgets and the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report dating back to Fiscal Year 2000. Visit the website at fountainhillsaz.gov.