Open Financial Statements Act.

Existing law, the Financial Information System for California (FISCal) Act, establishes the FISCal system, a single integrated financial management system for the state, and requires the Department of FISCal to maintain and operate that system upon its full implementation and final acceptance. Existing law requires various state and local agencies to provide financial reports, as provided. This bill would enact the Open Financial Statements Act. The bill would establish the Open Financial Statement Commission, consisting of 9 members, in the Treasurer's office. The bill would authorize the commission to contract, through an open and competitive request for proposal process, with vendors possessing the necessary software and financial data standards development expertise to build one or more taxonomies suitable for public agency financial filings and create a software tool that enables a public agency to easily create machine readable documents consistent with these taxonomies, if necessary. The bill would require the commission, by January 1, 2021, to report to the Legislature and make recommendations regarding how and whether to transition financial reporting by state and local agencies to a machine readable format. The bill would repeal the Open Financial Statements Act as of January 1, 2025.