Eleven years ago next month, advocates of openness, transparency and accountability in state and local government operations trumpeted with great fanfare the launch of the Ohio Checkbook, a website providing convenient public access to state and local governments’ spending and financial data.

The database, inspired by and initiated in cooperation with the Columbus-based Buckeye Institute think tank, immediately rose as a model for open and easily accessible public records for other states and localities to mimic throughout the nation.

Since the Checkbook’s launch on Dec. 2, 2014, however, years of wear and tear and other structural cracks have become increasingly apparent — to the detriment of the free and unfettered flow of public financial information to the masses.

It’s therefore high time for a tuneup to maximize its usefulness and widen its transparency to state and local taxpayers.

Fortunately, that repair job is readily available in the form of House Bill 413, sponsored by state Reps. Bob Peterson, R-Sabina, and Bob Young, R-Washington Township. Members of both chambers of the Ohio General Assembly should fast-track the bill, the Ohio State, Local Government Expenditure Databases Act, to final passage by year’s end.

The assets of the measure in enhancing and enlarging the Ohio Checkbook greatly outweigh any perceived liabilities.

The biggest loophole with today’s database lies in its lack of full inclusion. Currently, participation in the Ohio Checkbook system is mandatory for state agencies but only optional for local governments, and an embarrassingly low 26% of local public bodies in the state participate, according to sponsor Young. Even some of those do not keep their records current.

HB 413 would make it mandatory for all political subdivisions to participate fully. If enacted, counties, cities, school districts, library boards, pension systems and more than 6,500 taxing jurisdictions in the Buckeye State would be required to record and publish detailed information showing how they raise and spend every public penny in their coffers.

In addition to expenditures, the reinvented database also would require detailed information on sources of revenue and operating budgets, thereby providing a more comprehensive and straightforward view of local government finances for the legitimately inquiring minds of hard-working taxpayers.

Some skeptics of the potential to access such voluminous data at our fingertips might argue that such a system would place a costly and onerous burden on all keepers of the public purse. Truth to tell, however, local governments already must maintain these detailed ledgers of revenue and expenditures for their own accounting purposes, and they must produce that information upon taxpayer request to abide by existing public records laws in the state.

As a result, convenience would become a two-way street. Residents no longer would be required to file time-consuming and sometimes costly public-records requests and wait weeks or months for a response.

Those in charge of keeping those records no longer would be burdened by the responsibility of locating, isolating and distributing those records.

What’s more, according to the bill’s sponsors, new artificial intelligence software and plug-in platforms would make such transparent financial databases more affordable and user-friendly than ever before.

Another benefit of the proposed database transcends dollars and cents. As Hannah Kubbins, legislative director for Americans for Prosperity-Ohio, pointed out in her supportive testimony on the bill in the House Local Government Committee last month, HB 413 has great potential to strengthen good government.

She told lawmakers transparency does not just deter waste and abuse, it also encourages better decision-making. “When local officials know that every expenditure can be easily reviewed by the public, they make more prudent fiscal choices,” she said.

All of which is not to say that the legislation may require a little tweaking of its own. Kent Scarrett, executive director of the Ohio Municipal League representing 730 cities and villages in Ohio, pointed out two areas of concern in his testimony last month.

He urged state lawmakers to codify rules to ensure the new database is compatible with existing tools and systems already in place to avoid unnecessary duplication. And considering the legislation would afford $5 million to the state to support creation and maintenance of the new database, Scarrett is reasonable to request funding to cash-strapped local governments to pay for the setup and maintenance of the new and improved database on their end.

For now, timing is of the essence. As the initiative movement to abolish property taxes in Ohio gains more steam toward a possible vote next year, a newly repaired, expanded and more transparent government funding database could serve as one effective added weapon against that crusade.

With that in mind, Ohio legislators of all political stripes do not have the luxury of procrastination. Debate the bill fully over the next several weeks, revise where needed and adopt in time to let more sun shine in on public accountability of Ohioans’ hard-earned tax dollars by early 2026.