Gov: New state website is public records request 'on steroids'

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Want to know the top-paid state employees?

Or how much the Department of Health and Welfare is spending?

Idaho has created a new transparency website, to make it easier to find these and thousands of others of details about state government finances.

Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and Controller Brandon Woolf announced http://transparent.idaho.gov Thursday.

Otter said the site was akin to public records requests "on steroids," while Woolf said the site's information would be updated nightly, to provide up-to-the-day snapshots of what's happening in state government.

The site is modeled after similar accountability projects in places like Washington state and West Virginia and is part of a state-government transparency trend.

Idaho's project is modest, completed on a $28,000 budget but within Woolf's agency's existing spending package - important in conservative Idaho.