Austin publishes its checkbook and its contracts, but the raw data is hard to read. This site does one thing: it follows the money — the large checks the city cuts to outside vendors — and shows, in plain language, which of the city’s own fund types the money came from, what it bought, and who’s accountable.
Six ways to travel the same money. Start at Signals to get hooked, use Overview to get oriented, then dig into any single cut.
What's worth a look right now? Or ask about a topic — libraries, aviation, homeless services — and get a neutral, plain-language briefing built only from real checks.
Open Signals →How is Austin's money organized, and how much actually moved? The city's 8 fund types, their budget scale, and a drill-down to program, recipient, and what the money bought.
Open Overview →Every recent check rolled up into the city's own fund types — split between money that traces to a contract and money that's direct / untraceable.
Open Funds (bottom-up) →The raw feed: recent large checks the city cut, newest first, as a flat list you can scan and filter.
Open Big checks →What the City formally agreed to buy — the competitively awarded master agreements — how much was authorized vs. paid, and whether delivery is on track.
Open Contracts →Who gets paid. Every vendor in the window, total dollars, how many checks, and a jump into their full payment + contract trail.
Open Vendors →A note on scope: this tracks large vendor payments, not the whole budget. Most city money is salaries, benefits, and transfers that never become a vendor check — so the dollars here are a slice, deliberately the slice a citizen can actually follow. Every figure links back to the city’s own source data. How this works →
Who’s providing this? Built by an interested Austin citizen — independently, using the city’s own open public data to make sense of it all. Not affiliated with the City of Austin, any campaign, or any news outlet.