New year, new FIT data

With the new year comes new annual report filings. Our second quarterly update of the 2020 fiscal year financial data in the Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT) includes more governments so you can see where public money comes from and where it goes.

The State Auditor's Office uses FIT to publish the data from the annual reports that local governments are legally required to submit. SAO publishes updated data snapshots every quarter to ensure FIT contains the most up-to-date information for every local government that filed an annual report.

We published three snapshots in 2021. The “baseline” snapshot on June 30 included the data from 1,698 local governments. The Sept. 30 update added $8 billion in revenues from reports filed after June 30. The Dec. 31 update brings more financial information from local governments for a total of 1,786 governments reporting on revenues of more than $45 billion. With this new information, FIT users like reporters, bond rating groups and lenders, legislators, the public and others now can explore and compare more information about how local governments receive and spend public dollars.

To access this new snapshot data, visit https://portal.sao.wa.gov/FIT/, click the drop-down menu in the top right corner, and select “2020 Filing Milestone Snapshot (revised 12/31/2021).”

We'll create one more snapshot update for 2020 fiscal year financial data in March 2022 after additional filing submissions have refreshed the FIT.

If you have questions about snapshots or want to schedule a one-on-one FIT personal training session, please connect with the Center for Government Innovation's data specialists at center@sao.wa.gov.

On the FIT home page, click the drop-down menu in the top right corner and select “2020 Filing Milestone Snapshot (revised 12/31/2021).”