State Legislator Develops “Porkcast” Website to Track Montana Government Spending

Montana State Representative Nicholas Schwaderer of Superior has been pushing for more and more transparency in government. He says he became disillusioned by constant high price tags on transparency websites he had hoped the state would build to give the public more information.

"Almost every single time we tried to put one of these [transparency websites] in a bill, we would get smacked with a fiscal note that would say something like $120,000 to build and $100,000 a year to maintain, so [the website] would get yanked out," Schwaderer said. "As someone who is a web developer, the cost was always a bit frustrating to me. I was wondering who was getting all of that money and how those quotes could be realistic."

After failing to pass similar websites in the legislature, Schwaderer says he has spent about 60 hours a week over the past four or five weeks building a transparency website of his own. The result is a new website called Porkcast.com.

"What it allows folks to do, is to type in their email and to type in a query, whether that be Walmart, or Nicholas R. Schwaderer, some company or some individual," Schwaderer said. "Porkcast.com will then send the user an email whenever that company or that individual gets a check or credit card payment from the State of Montana."

Schwaderer says he hopes this information will help keep government accountable. He also says that next time he brings a bill with a transparency website in it, he will volunteer to build the application for free, so the state can save the 100,000 dollars it supposedly costs to build one.