New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli‘s office launched Open Book New York, a new Web site that allows the public open access to details of the spending records of 113 agencies and 60,000 state contracts, Melissa Mansfield at Newsday reported yesterday. It’s a USAspending.gov for the Empire State. DiNapoli is billing the site as a way for the public to follow how the state spends their tax dollars, and he said he hopes it will help to bring more accountability to New York state government. The site updates it contract information every day, while it updates spending figures once every quarter.  And they have plans to add contracts of all cities, towns and school districts as well. Good stuff.

The Albany Project blog links to an introductory YouTube video about the project. The blog compares Open Book to N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s Project Sunlight, whose goal is to allow citizens to easily monitor government decision-making.  As Buffalo Pundit wrote about the Open Book, “The long crawl towards Albany transparency continues apace.”