Pinehurst, NC

Primary Objective

The Village of Pinehurst wanted to easily communicate financial trend data and adhere to the North Carolina municipal transparency laws.

Challenge

The Village of Pinehurst, NC has been looking for a way to provide their financial information to the public in an easy to understand format.

“Before ClearGov, our financial data was published once a year,” said John Frye, Financial Services Director in Pinehurst. “It was also not interactive and no live peer comparisons could be made, making it difficult for users to see trends since only one year could be viewed at a time.”

Having this data easily accessible would help reduce the number of public information requests, which can take a great deal of time and incur significant costs.

Additionally, North Carolina passed a law in 2015 that required all municipalities to create transparency websites. “Although the state has not yet enforced this requirement, we wanted to be proactive and have a site in place when they did,” said Frye.

We have received nothing but positive feedback from the public on our new ClearGov Transparency center. It has helped us communicate our financials in a user-friendly and interactive way. It will be great to see how this will help save time and resources with public information requests moving forward.

John Frye
Village of Pinehurst,
Financial Services Director

ClearGov Solution

“We uploaded all of our line item revenue and expenditure data since 2011 into the ClearGov system. Having seven years of data provides users with a clear picture of where we have come financially over that time, particularly how we have recovered from the Great Recession of 2008,” said Frye.

Pinehurst took their transparency a step further and created a custom peer group that compares their finances to cities in the state that provide similar services.

“ClearGov Transparency having the baseline data for the non subscribing cities and the US Census data is what really makes the system great. This allows for comparisons with peers at a department level cost,” said Frye.

Over time, the Transparency center will reduce the number of public information requests and increase public trust in their financial operations.

ClearGov Transparency having the baseline data for the non-subscribing cities and the US Census data is what really makes the system great. This allows for comparisons with peers at a department level cost.

John Frye
Village of Pinehurst,
Financial Services Director