Hawaii was given an F in a new study on how well states stack up in providing online access to government spending data.

Referred to as spending transparency, Hawaii’s grade fell from the C it received last year in the report card by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. The annual report is the fourth of its kind that rates state governments based on the extent and searchability of their spending disclosure websites.

The state’s deputy chief information officer in charge of operations for the Office of Information Management and Technology said the report is incomplete because it only examined the state Procurement Office’s website for transparency.

"Even though there is transparency information on there in terms of contracts and procurements and notices and bids … it doesn’t make up the whole picture of what’s going on in the state," Keone Kali said. "(Information) is in various places. … (But) They didn’t look at any other pieces."

Last year’s C meant state government was making strides in online spending transparency.

So why the lower grade?

"Hawaii’s falling score does not mean spending has become less transparent. It means most states are improving faster," said Phineas Baxandall, senior analyst for tax and budget policy with U.S. PIRG Education Fund.

The nation’s top-performing states in government spending transparency are Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Okla­homa, according to the report.

State-run websites that meet the rating group’s "Transparency 2.0" standards offer broad and specific government spending information that is one-stop and one-click, according to the report.

It refers frequently to providing information at the "checkbook level," where users can see payments made to individual companies and details about what the money was spent on.

According to the report, websites scoring high answer three questions for users:

» How much is the government spending on particular expenditures?

» Which companies is the government paying?

» What is the public getting for its money?

"It is not possible to ensure that government spending decisions are fair and efficient unless information is publicly accessible," Baxandall said.

Wyoming, Wisconsin, California and North Dakota received F’s along with Hawaii.

Kali said this is the first time his office has heard of the report, and pointed out that last year Hawaii was awarded a B- from the Center for Digital Government. The Center for Digital Government rates states every other year based on how they are working to better serve residents and streamline operations.

"We’re on our way," Kali said. "We’re trending upward; the only place to go from the bottom is up."

Kali said he doesn’t view the PIRG report as comprehensive because "it only offers a very small picture of the transparency initiative" in Hawaii.

The state Office of Information Management and Technology recently drafted a business and technology transformation plan to deal with electronic information disclosure and community engagement.

"We have an award-winning plan for our business and technology transformation," Kali said. "We are executing that plan, and it’s going to take a little time to turn some of the stuff around, but there have been some successes each quarter."

Sonny Bhagowalia, who was hired in 2011 as the state’s first chief information officer, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Kali said the state launched an open data website, data.hawaii.gov, last summer. It is working on an enterprise resource planning system that will consolidate 126 different systems across all departments and become the authoritative source for all of the state’s financial and human resources systems. It also plans to offer its annual financial report in a searchable format.

"Some of the stuff is out there, but it’s on many different websites across the state, and we’re really trying to consolidate them all," he said.

Kali said the enterprise system, dubbed the Hawaii Common Portal, that the Office of Information Management and Technology plans to begin developing in July will offer some of the "checkbook level" expenditures PIRG calls for.

"We do not currently publish any checkbook level data," he said, adding that it will be available "to some degree" once the portal is up and running.

"The idea, in the future, is that info can be published in a usable way," he said.

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On the Net:

» The report can be found at uspirgedfund.org/reports/usf/following-money-2013.