Lakewood’s Finances Posted Online as Part of OhioCheckbook

Lakewood became the second city in the county to participate in OhioCheckbook — a state initiative to place all city spending online.

“We’re proud of the fact that Lakewood is a leader in implementing this important initiative,” said Lakewood Mayor Michael Summers. “OhioCheckbook provides an accessible and an easy-to-use tool to find all the expenditures of our local government. We welcome the accountability this provides.”

Have a look at the city’s finances here, on Lakewood.OhioCheckbook.com.

State Treasurer Josh Mandel said the goal of the initiative is to set a new standard for government transparency; OhioCheckbook.com recently earned Ohio the No. 1 ranking in the country for government transparency.

“I believe the people of Lakewood have a right to know how their tax money is being spent and I applaud local leaders here for partnering with the Treasurer’s office to post their finances on OhioCheckbook.com,” said Treasurer Mandel. “By partnering and posting local government checkbooks, taxpayers across Ohio are empowered with a powerful tool to hold public officials accountable within their communities.”

Treasurer Mandel and Mayor Summers were also joined at the recent announcement by the city’s Finance Director Jennifer Pae and Assistant Finance Director Keith Schuster. With the launch of OhioCheckbook, taxpayers in Lakewood are now able to view more than 115,000 individual checks representing more than $451.4 million of total spending over the past five fiscal years.

“We embrace any program that furthers our long-standing mission of having the most transparent financial practices in the State,” said City of Lakewood Finance Director Jennifer Pae.

Earlier this year, Treasurer Mandel sent a letter to 18,062 local government and school officials representing 3,962 local governments throughout the state calling on them to place their checkbook level data on OhioCheckbook.com and extending an invitation to partner with his office at no cost to local governments. These local governments include cities, counties, townships, schools, library districts and other special districts.

For more information, check out Lakewood.OhioCheckbook.com.