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Contractors aren鈥檛 the only ones being asked by city governments to turn to the Internet to access public information; citizens are too.

The Oregon House of Representatives last month voted 59-1 to pass a bill 鈥� 鈥� intended to make state budget statutes more understandable and readable for the general public. Part of the bill would reduce both the amount of budget information and the amount of budget-related public notices that need to be published in newspapers.

鈥淟ocal budget statutes have been piecemealed together over 150 years,鈥� said Michael Novak, a government relations manager for the League of Oregon Cities, a group representing the interests of municipalities. 鈥淭he changes are a recognition that there is a better way to inform the public about budgets.鈥�

The bill would allow a prominent position on the municipality鈥檚 official website to count as one of the two required places for posting of the budget. The bill also would eliminate the requirement to publish financial summaries of individual funds as well as the requirement that a list of personal service costs be included in the budget document.

Deborah Bond, finance and management services director for the city of Gresham, said these changes would not only save the city some money, but also draw more public citizens to the city鈥檚 website.

鈥淚t just doesn鈥檛 make sense that there are towns in the state with budgets as small as $10,000 and they have to pay all this money to publish information about it in the paper,鈥� Bond said. 鈥淲e can now use smaller notices in the paper to drive people towards our website for more information.鈥�

HB 2425 is presently being reviewed by the Senate鈥檚 General Government Consumer and Small Business Protection committee.