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Financial State of the States 2015

Truth in Accounting: “Government reports are complicated, long documents. At Truth in Accounting (TIA), we believe that citizens deserve easy-to-understand, truthful, and transparent financial information from their governments. Without this, how can they participate in democracy? In order to give citizens the government financial information they deserve, Sheila Weinberg founded TIA in 2002. At TIA’s inception, Sheila’s work focused on the federal government, specifically how the government could claim it had a surplus even as its debt was rising. As Sheila became more involved with government financial analysis, her research spread to the state level. In 2009, Sheila expanded her efforts, and completed an analysis of the finances all 50 state governments. As TIA has grown, our research now also extends to the city and municipal levels. In 2011, we created State Data Lab (SDL) to give context to our data. Our users can use SDL to see how their state or city government is doing, compare it with other states and cities, and see demographics, economic, and financial trends In order to achieve our mission of educating and empowering citizens with understandable, reliable, and transparent government financial information, we produce reports at the federal, state, and local level for citizens. These reports cut through political tricks used in government finance, and are presented in plain English, so citizens can understand their government’s true financial condition. Every September, we launch our report entitled The Financial State of the States. This is a comprehensive analysis of the 50 state governments’ finances, and includes background on new finance standards coming into play, trends across the states, and key findings.”

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