House takes critical steps toward improving public access and insight to how official resources are spent

WASHINGTON – Committee on House Administration Chairman Candice Miller (R-MI) announced the electronic version of the House Statement of Disbursements (SOD) is now available in an open text format that is fully searchable and sortable. Last year, Chairman Miller (MI-10) and Ranking Member Bob Brady (PA-01) tapped Committee Members Reps. Rodney Davis (R-IL) & Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) to evaluate and review standards and procedures in an effort to clarify House practices and examine the regulations governing official expenses. As a result of the work of the bipartisan Review Group, this change was implemented to create a more transparent and accountable review system in the House.

“Today is a great day for the House of Representatives. Increased transparency and the ease of access to important data is a necessary component of effective government. I commend the efforts of the Committee’s bipartisan Review Group headed up by Reps. Rodney Davis (R-IL) & Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) to continue to modernize the House and enable better public access to government data.”

The SOD for the first quarter of 2016 is now available on House.gov in both CSV and PDF format. The newly available CSV format is fully searchable and sortable and provides easier digital access to House data. Visit https://disbursements.house.gov/ to download the SOD.

This edition of the SOD details payments disbursed from official allowances during January, February, and March of 2016. The House will continue to post the SODs in the CSV format and archive CSV files as the House had been doing with previous PDF versions. The information contained in the SOD has been available to the public and the media on a quarterly basis since 1964 and available online since 2009.

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