Montana scored a 78 out of 100 for financial transparency

Truth in Accounting, a government finance watchdog organization, released their 2021 Financial Transparency Score report for the 50 states. This report focuses on important-but-obscure annual financial reports on file in statehouses across the country and measures their contents against widely accepted best practices from the private sector. This report is based on fiscal year (FY) 2020, which includes the onset of the pandemic and the most recent reports available for all 50 states.

The Financial Transparency Score Report measures the states on an easily understandable 0-100 scoring scale, with a perfect score of 100 signifying an ideal timely, truthful, and transparent performance. While no state earned a perfect score in this year’s analysis, TIA regards a score of 80 or above as noteworthy.

Montana scored a 78 out of 100 for financial transparency. Montana could improve its transparency by being more timely. No states published their reports within 100 days of their fiscal year end, yet most corporate financial reports are issued within 45 days of their respective fiscal year ends.

Overall, the 50 states’ transparency scores worsened compared to the previous years. Several states faced audit issues due to challenges with the CARES Act and unemployment insurance. Only 37 states’ financial reports received clean audit opinions, which is down 10 states from last year.