USAS Confidentiality Indicator

Spring 2008 User Services Conference

Where the Money Goes

The Comptroller's office implemented the Where the Money Goes online state expenditure database on Oct. 1, 2007, as required by state law.

– Web-based database available to the public.

– The system includes historical expenditure data from fiscal 2001–07 at a summary level and from fiscal 2008 forward at a detail level.

– The retention period is the current year’s expenditure information, plus the most recent 7 years’ information.

Information Available

• The Comptroller's office does not allow public access to the payee address through the database.

• In addition, no public access is allowed to information identified as confidential in the Uniform Statewide Accounting System (USAS) by a state agency or institution of higher education.

• Transactions identified as confidential and employee salaries are included in the database only to provide payment information summarized by comptroller object.

Detail Data Available

Information available to the public for fiscal 2008 includes:– transaction amount– date the payment was processed– name of the agency making the

payment– name of the payee (company,

individual, organization or governmental unit)

– object category– comptroller object

Comptroller Object Code Control

• To further protect the confidentiality of records during the first fiscal year (fiscal 2008) of the web database, the Comptroller's office is using the Comptroller object as a secondary control method.

• Payee level information for Comptroller objects that are frequently, if not always, confidential is not publicly available on the database for fiscal 2008. Applicable object codes can be found on the Comptroller’s Web site.

New Requirement for FY09• The Comptroller’s object control method will only

apply to fiscal 2008 expenditures. • Beginning Sept. 1, 2008, the confidentiality of a

transaction will be determined solely on the value in the CONF/CONF IND field. On payment transactions, fiscal year is based on the payment date.

• We are instituting a plan to ensure all confidential transactions are properly marked when submitted to USAS based on a *DEFINE table of identified object codes.

Valid Values for the Confidential Indicator

Effective March 31, 2008, there are four valid values for the USAS confidential indicator:

– Blank (default) or N—No. Transaction contains no confidential information.

– Y—Yes. The entire contents of the transaction are confidential as defined by the Texas Public Information Act.

– S (new)—Some confidential information. The transaction payee name, comptroller object, transaction amount, payment date and paying agency are displayed but the remaining contents of the transaction are considered confidential.

Additional review is needed to determine how to accommodate the new S value. Additional information will be forthcoming.

*DEFINE Enhancements• A table (AQUCONF) will be implemented to

identify confidential object codes. The associated records will be flagged accordingly with a Y value when transmitted to USAS.

• Object codes on the table are based on those currently being considered confidential by the Comptroller’s office.

• If your institution wants additional object codes added to the table, send a request via Issue Manager. The table is not institution specific, so additional evaluation will be needed.

Procedure for Reclassifying Records• Institutions that submit a USAS transaction and erroneously

fail to mark the transaction as confidential may request that the Comptroller’s office reclassify the transaction as confidential for the Web database. This reclassification will only apply to the Where the Money Goes database and not USAS. There is no procedure to adjust USAS history.

• Send a request to reclassify an expenditure as confidential for the Web database via e-mail to statewide.accounting@cpa.state.tx.us