Jessica Mathews / Associated Press / News@whmi.com


Michigan’s new political transparency portal was delayed by months amid growing tensions between state officials and the contractor hired to build the system, according to emails obtained by Bridge Michigan.

The portal, named the Michigan Transparency Network, is meant to be an integrated system for campaign finance, lobbying and personal financial disclosures — providing the public a view into key ethics filings by candidates and their elected officials.

But the online system has become a longstanding headache for the Michigan Department of State. Tyler Technologies, a Texas firm that was the sole qualified bidder for the $9 million contract, has struggled to follow through on project goals touted by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

The emails, obtained through a records request, show state officials had months of back-and-forth amid growing frustration with the contractor, repeatedly calling delays and programming errors “unacceptable.”

While the system has been modernized from its predecessor and is promised to function better for filers, shortcomings persist on the portal’s public-facing side. The new search engines for campaign finance and lobbyist spending on elected officials still provide less information than their decades-old predecessors.

“We remain committed to the successful implementation of this project,” the company said in a statement to Bridge Michigan. “We continue to work closely with the Michigan Bureau of Elections to meet the contract deliverables.”

The company has continued work on the project for months without payment from the state after a backlash from lawmakers, who have sought to move IT oversight out of Benson’s department as a result.

Growing frustration
The portal had originally been set to roll out in December 2024, but after a litany of issues migrating from the decades-old legacy system to the new platform, it faced repeated delays. The department paused payments to the contractor in mid-May this year and those payments haven’t resumed.

In mid-December, a training from Tyler Technologies on the new lobbying disclosure system had to be canceled because “it was so full of errors that (the Tyler trainer) could not continue,” Bob Burns, who leads the department’s division tasked with public disclosures, wrote in an email to Tyler employees.

“The lack of preparedness of the product and staff is deeply concerning considering we are so close to launch,” he continued.

The public debut of the systems was pushed back two months to late February. By the end of January, the public unveiling was pushed back again.

“To me, these repeated delays are becoming unacceptable,” an employee in the department’s disclosure division wrote to Burns. He proposed a hard deadline for the company to finish work on the project “whereafter financial penalties are communicated and levied.”

Tyler blamed the delays at least in part on the department’s Bureau of Elections. As contractors worked to transition the database of records, they repeatedly had to ask state analysts how to handle the data and often had to wait for answers as officials deliberated.

“This is impacting the timeline since this is blocking migration efforts,” wrote Kristin Carpenter, a Tyler employee. “Every day that delays the answer needed extends the go-live date.”

State officials in turn were vexed by the explanation, arguing there was no excuse to stop working entirely.

“Tyler provided an unacceptable short deadline (eight-hour deadline) and unacceptable solutions,” Burns wrote to a colleague. “Every issue cannot lead to a delay of the entire project.”

Ahead of the campaign finance filing deadline in April, a representative from the state technology department sent out a survey to Department of State employees on “project closure,” even as the system had hundreds of outstanding issues.

“This project is far from being closed out,” Burns wrote in response. “The vendor still owes us contract requirements that are unfulfilled plus bugs and fixes that are needed.”

Financial disclosure woes
Internal emails also indicate the creation of a personal financial disclosure system — a requirement under the state constitutional amendment voters passed in 2022 — show officials felt the system was ready for a public debut.

As late as April 4, meeting minutes between Tyler and the state indicated “all known bugs are resolved” as the system prepared to go live April 14, a month ahead of the filing deadline for elected officials to disclose some basic information about their finances.

By April 28, though, it was clear the software had major issues. According to an email between Burns and Tyler employees, any officials who filed a report the year prior couldn’t file a new one — nor could they update their basic information.

“We are being asked daily when they will be fixed, so we need a timeline to fix immediately,” Burns wrote.

Other elected officials at the time told Bridge the interface would fail to load entirely.

As the May 15 filing deadline loomed, legislators had struggled enough with the system that they hastily passed a law extending that deadline to June 13, amending the financial disclosure law so they could submit reports via email instead of using the system the state had spent millions to build.

A week later, Benson’s department told the state House Oversight Committee it was pausing payments to Tyler Technologies until issues were resolved.

Nearly six months later, payments have not resumed, department spokesperson Angela Benander confirmed to Bridge.

As work continues on the portal, it’s not clear when payments might resume.

No IT movement
In response to struggles with the transparency portal, lawmakers included a provision in the 2026 state budget that instructed Benson’s department to transfer all its IT systems to the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, which had worked with her department throughout the rollout.

That directive hasn’t resulted in any changes, however. The Department of State believes the language instead “codifies our existing practices and policies,” Benander, the spokesperson, told Bridge in a statement.

“We closely collaborate with DTMB on all aspects of IT projects including project management, procurement, development, and maintenance,” she said. “We are always working to improve and strengthen that collaboration wherever possible and we’re grateful to DTMB for their partnership on the dozens of projects MDOS operates every year to serve the people of Michigan.”

State Rep. Ann Bollin, a Brighton Republican who leads the House’s budget committee, disagreed with that assessment, saying the provision was intended to force the department to relinquish control.

“It’s just typical that the department’s response is not factual,” Bollin told Bridge in an interview. “Routinely, Secretary Benson comes out as being in support of transparency and accuracy, and we have not seen it come out of this bureau.”

Bollin said she would’ve been informed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s staff if the provision couldn’t be enforced, but has not. She said she hasn’t received any notice from them.
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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.