CITY PUTS CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS ONLINE

Published on Wednesday, July 12, 2000
© 2000 Madison Newspapers, Inc.

Byline: By David Callender, The Capital Times

City officials and local volunteers are shaking their heads over the state's struggle to develop an online campaign finance reporting system.

That's because the Madison City Clerk's Office inaugurated Wisconsin's first public online campaign finance site this week.

The system was developed by a volunteer working on a shoestring budget.

``When I was working with the candidates, the main thing they stressed was to keep it simple,'' said Michael Jacob, a member of Progressive Dane who developed the city's site.

Jacob, who also helped develop a searchable database of state campaign contributions for the private nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, estimated he spent about one week working full-time on the new site.

He noted that the city's system combines a basic spreadsheet with an electronic filing program. The spreadsheet application should cut down on accounting errors, the most common problem local officials encounter with the reports, he said.

Here's how the system works:

• Council members and candidates to go to the city clerk's Web site and download a spreadsheet and set of entry instructions for filing campaign finance reports.
• The candidates then can use the computer spreadsheet instead of writing their contributions and expenses onto paper forms.
• The spreadsheet totals the figures, calculates summary information and creates a cover page. Candidates and council members then submit one paper copy to the clerk's office and file another copy by e-mail.