Track state initiative expenditures

[joelrip]

California voters create laws by voting on statewide initiatives. Sometimes, these initiatives create new programs that direct revenue to specific purposes. Tracking and visualizing these expenditures would provide valuable information to the people of California.

For example, Proposition 64 in 2016 legalized marijuana and imposed an excise tax on its sale. This money is deposited in a California Marijuana Tax Fund, which is to be used for expenditures for specified purposes.

It would be valuable to:

• Identify all initiatives that create a funding stream dedicated to a specific purpose. This list of recent initiatives is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_ballot_propositions_2010%E2%80%9319
• Identify expenditures in Open FI$Cal that can be tied to the initiatives, using the available fund, program, or department information
• Tie them together, analyze, and visualize!