CU alum’s startup wants to show you where your tax dollars are going

From the Daily Camera (Boulder):  It was a property tax bill that inspired University of Colorado alum Chris Bullock to start his company, ClearGov.

“It shocked me, just how much money it was,” Bullock, a Massachusetts resident, said. “I wanted to know how it compared to what other towns were charging.”

Frustrated, he went digging through data: pages and pages of state-mandated reports showing how much various cities around him earned and spent on things like property taxes, police and education.

A data and analytics professional, Bullock understood the numbers he was looking at but he realized that, to the ordinary person, they would make about as much sense as quantum physics or Egyptian hieroglyphics.

And so he started ClearGov, a fiscal transparency database that uses infographics to present a town’s revenue and expenditure data — down to the vendor and equipment costs for individual departments.

The success of ClearGov, though, hinges on its ability to attract governments, who need to purchase a premium yearly membership to provide access to the most detailed financial reports. The membership can cost $2,500 and $25,000 per year, depending on the city’s budget.

The draw, Bullock says, is the government’s desire to restore public confidence through increased transparency.

“Governments are trying to combat this mistrust by becoming more open and transparent, but the data they provide is confusing and complex, which further drives mistrust. ClearGov is about properly communicating a city’s financial story,” Bullock said.

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