LANSING — Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson gave an update Friday on the Michigan Transparency Network, a new campaign finance database with a so far rocky rollout.
The website launched lacking many basic functionalities, causing lawmakers to criticize the project and its development.
“We are dedicated and committed to getting this right, and I am personally ensuring that we can do this consistently with our team over the months ahead,” Benson said.
The website from the Michigan government — known as MiTN, pronounced ‘mitten’ — is set to receive updates in the coming weeks, adding features that some lawmakers say are coming far too late.
“The new MiTN system was supposed to be the state of the art transparency system, and it has been something worse than a broken Fitbit,” said Rep. Jaime Greene, (R) District 65, Richmond.
The website launched earlier this year to replace a decades-old — but functioning — system.
Since its launch, website users have had issues with filing and accessing reports.
“Our vendors’ initial planning of this project did not sufficiently measure the risk of combining all of these data sources across the 25 years of legacy data, and that led to delays and performance issues,” Benson said.
Benson and her office have drawn heat on the issue from lawmakers. The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee heard from developers last month, while the full Legislature passed a new law to accommodate their issues with the website.
Benson says the site has received some fixes since its launch in March, and it set to receive new features next month.
The July update will include easily viewable totals for campaign contributions and automatic summaries for each report.
“That release will enable users to search cumulative contributions using the campaign finance search function, and it will be easier for users to scroll through public search results and download data into spreadsheets,” she said.
Benson says that she wants the website to be a one-stop-shop for Michigan campaign finance information.
“When all is said and done, Michiganders will have a consistently modern, easy to use and transparent tool to track the use of the influence of money in the political arena,” she said.
But Greene and other House Republicans say that they’re still not impressed with the project.
“It is time that the secretary of state is held accountable for her debacle of a launched failed website,” she said. “She doesn’t have very many jobs to do. This is one of the most important jobs she has, and she has failed to do it.”
Benson is set to testify before the House oversight committee Tuesday morning, likely to face some tough questions from lawmakers.
