About Open FI$Cal

Open FI$Cal presents non-confidential expenditure data extracted from the FI$Cal system. Currently, the site includes data from 184 departments. Data on Open FI$Cal is updated monthly, with a data lag of at least 60 days to allow departments to review their data before publication.

For more information, please refer to our FAQs, our Metadata, and our Transparency Data Handbook.

We welcome your thoughts on Open FI$Cal via our Feedback survey or transparency@fiscal.ca.gov

Included Departments

Open FI$Cal contains data from 153 departments that use FI$Cal, as well as 31 departments that are deferred or exempt from using FI$Cal for their accounting. This represents about 76% of California’s budgetary expenditures. Included departments are listed on our Included Departments page.

Excluded Vendor Information

Vendor name information is included in the Vendor Transactions report on Open FI$Cal. While the information in this report is as complete as possible, vendor name is not available for all expenditure transactions and is masked in some situations for which vendor identity must remain confidential. Specifically:

• Transactions that are not directly entered into FI$Cal’s Accounts Payable (AP) module are not linked to vendor names in FI$Cal. These include a number of bulk payments to beneficiaries, payroll payments to state employees, and all transactions for departments that do not use FI$Cal for their accounting. These payments do not appear at all in the Vendor Transactions report, though they do appear (without vendor names) in the other reports on Open FI$Cal.
• Vendor names for all transactions with state employees are currently masked. While government employee salaries are a matter of public record, certain types of employee payments, such as disability and workers’ compensation payments, as well as payments to undercover employees, are confidential. Out of an abundance of caution, Open FI$Cal is currently masking recipient names for all employee transactions. These payments appear in the Vendor Transactions report with “Confidential” in place of the actual vendor name.
• Certain payments to certain vendors by certain departments are required to remain confidential. These payments also appear in the Vendor Transactions report with “Confidential” in place of the actual vendor name. Masked payments for departments currently on Open FI$Cal include:
  • Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery: Certain payments for the Beverage Container, E-Waste, and Used Oil programs pursuant to PRC §§ 14580, 14581, 42476, and 48653.
  • Gambling Control Commission: Certain payments to tribes, cities, and counties pursuant to GOV §12019.55(a), GOV §12019.80, and the tribal-state gaming compact between the State of California and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria §8.4(c) and (d).
  • High Speed Rail Authority: Relocation payments pursuant to 49 CFR 24.9(b).
  • Office of the State Public Defender: Certain expert contracts pursuant to attorney client privilege as defined in EVID §954 and BPC §6068(e)(1) and §6149.
  • Various Departments: Certain payments related to investigations, intelligence information, or security procedures pursuant to GOV §6254(f).

Our Open Data Principles

As Open FI$Cal evolves, we will follow these guiding principles:

Proactive transparency

We will adopt a presumption in favor of openness for all data that is not protected, sensitive, or confidential; release data to promote civic engagement and government accountability; and prioritize the publication of high-value datasets.

Privacy and confidentiality

We will limit the publication of personally identifiable information to that which is both legally authorized and relevant, so as to minimize the risk of inappropriate identification and to protect the privacy rights of individuals. We will not disclose any information that is confidential per law, regulation, or contract.

Inclusivity

We will incorporate public perspectives into open data policy and explore partnerships to leverage the impact of open data.

Broad accessibility

We will publish data using open standards and machine-readable formats, utilize open-source solutions where possible, and work toward implementing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to our data. We will strive to make our data as understandable as possible to non-experts.

Data quality

We will develop processes to improve data quality and reporting.