Website aims to help public track political contributions

It took two years longer and cost more than anticipated, but Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan this month finally unveiled the beta version of her long-awaited politicals-pending website.

The site, dubbed See the Money, is designed to help the public track money in political campaigns. It currently has information for statewide and legislative candidates since 2013, but Reagan hopes it will eventually include finances for city, county and local races.

Reagan has touted the website as a way to bring greater transparency to campaign funding, especially as the

influence of so-called “dark money” grows.

She said voters will be “blown away” by the site’s features.

While campaign-finance information already is online, the site allows users to display and group spending data in new ways.

For example, the site shows every campaign a donor has given money to, which could shine a light on the influence of individual lobbyists and other power brokers.

But Reagan’s office has struggled with the effort. The website’s rollout was repeatedly delayed and so far has cost $200,000 more than first estimated.

Meanwhile, one of her opponents in next year’s election for secretary of state, state Sen. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, says the purpose of the new website is unclear because all the information already is available online.

Reagan said the site was launched in a beta version so journalists and other users can help identify any errors. She expects a final version to launch sometime next year.

The stakes are high for Reagan, who earlier this year said she wouldn’t “want to be secretary of state” if the project isn’t completed.

Reagan first talked about the concept of creating a super campaign-finance reporting website during her 2014 campaign for the office.

She originally said it would debut in summer 2015. After the deadline passed, she said it would be ready in time for the 2016 statewide election. That deadline also was missed.

Reagan said the See the Money project was shelved as her office diverted staff time to deal with the demands of the 2016 election cycle, with its four statewide elections.

That year brought numerous headaches for Reagan, from long lines at the presidential preference election to her office’s failure to mail publicity pamphlets to about 200,000 households in time for a May special election.

“That was definitely something I didn’t anticipate, so I will take full blame for that,” Reagan said of staff-time demands during 2016.

Reagan said she also didn’t anticipate how much she would need to do to increase her office’s IT capabilities. She said she has hired two coders to complete the project in-house.

“I wasn’t going to accept mediocre, because we have mediocre right now,” Reagan said of the state’s existing camtees paign-finance site.

Reagan first hired an outside contractor to develop the site. But after paying the contractor nearly $500,000, she decided to move the project in-house in 2016.

The state has now spent about $700,000 on the project, Reagan said. She expects the final price tag for See The Money to grow to about $1.5 million as it expands in the next few years.

Reagan said her office always intended to spend about $1.5 million on the project over several years. But she had initially hired an outside contractor to develop and launch the site for a third of that price.

The version of the website that Reagan rolled out this month is far from a final product, even given the repeated delays.

The website contains a banner reading, “Warning: Please note this is currently a beta product that may have data or user experience inconsistencies and only contains information back to 2013.”

Reagan said she rolled out the beta version so users can help test the site and alert her office to any errors they encounter.

She said the site likely won’t become the state’s primary campaign-finance reporting system until sometime next year, after errors are resolved. Until then, candidates and political commit will use the state’s old site to report activity.

Reagan said she’s working with a handful of cities and towns to expand it to local races. She said she hopes Arizona’s 15 counties and 91 cities and towns all will eventually use the site.

However, at least one of Reagan’s challengers in next year’s election for secretary of state said she’s unimpressed by the result after three years of work.

Hobbs said she doesn’t understand why Reagan spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a site that presents information that’s already publicly available. Hobbs said the site does nothing to crack down on dark money.

“There’s absolutely nothing new here,” she said. “It’s just the same information in a different way.”

Reagan, meanwhile, has cast the website as a way to help shine light on dark money.

She initially campaigned on a promise to champion disclosure from nonprofit corporations that spend money in campaigns and don’t have to disclose their donors.

Once in office, however, Reagan reversed her stance and pushed for a new law that requires less state oversight of such corporations.

To see the new website in beta format, go to seethemoney.az.gov.