The New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) today announced the launch of its newly redesigned searchable database – just in time for the May 15th filing day for candidates in the 2009 election.
Through its website, the CFB provides complete and instantaneous public disclosure of financial information for all campaigns for city office. The redesigned database allows users greater flexibility and precision, and will help them find the information they seek more quickly and easily.
“Providing accessible, real-time public disclosure of campaign finances in city elections is central to the mission of the CFB. This newly redesigned database allows New Yorkers to play an important role in holding candidates accountable,” said Amy Loprest, Executive Director of the CFB.
Designed to be more accessible and user-friendly, the new searchable database provides users with two options for finding campaign finance data – a quick and easy contributor search, and a more powerful advanced search.
- The Quick Contributor Search gives users a faster way to find a specific contributor, or generate a list of contributors to a particular candidate. The simplified quick search interface helps users to get their results without sifting through unwanted options.
- The Advanced Search provides users with a wider range of search options that enable more powerful queries than were previously available. The Advanced Search allows users to more easily find and compare candidates running for a particular office, or in a particular district. Users can, for the first time, easily search for transactions within a given disclosure period. For campaign contributions, the new database enables searches by the contributor’s location or zip code. The advanced search also includes an improved search for intermediaries, or “bundlers.”
The redesigned database provides search results in an environment that provides far more clarity, flexibility, and interactivity than the original. Users are given a dollar total for each search, along with the ability to sort results on screen. The results can be downloaded into a Microsoft Excel (.xls) file, or a printer-friendly Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file.
The CFB has scheduled a training session at its offices on Tuesday, May 12 at 1:00 pm for interested parties who would like a demonstration of the new features of the redesigned database. If you would like to reserve a space, please contact Joseph Ferris at (212) 306-7604 or jferris@nyccfb.info.
The CFB database can be found at www.nyccfb.info/searchabledb/.