This transparency thing is getting serious.

As promised a few months back, Metro Council members Hal Heiner and Ken Fleming have been working on opening up the Metro Government’s checkbooks for all to see. Today, they’ll reveal LouisvilleCheckbook.com, a new online resource which purports to have records of checks written by Metro Government for the last three years.

From the release:

Fleming and Heiner will demonstrate the various uses of the web-site and explain how citizens, elected officials and the media can use this new innovative tool to better understand Metro Government. LouisvilleCheckbook.com which is available online starting today offers online visitors the opportunity to search through checks written for the previous three fiscal years. This information includes among other things: travel expenses, contractual payments and supplies for both operating expenses and capital projects.

Now I haven’t gotten the tutorial, but a quick perusal shows that you can find checks written for less than $10 up to six figure amounts to vendors. The listings aren’t as detailed as we might like, but it ought to bring up plenty of questions about the way Metro spends its money.