looking up individuals is one thing, but to actually have the full dataset would be something else. and even that is a degree removed from having the dataset analyzed and broken out to show exactly how money is allocated across the spectrum of public services, which is a skillset not every person has.

a searchable spreadsheet is the absolute bare minimum of transparency, and frankly its more like when a law firm sends over a bunch of printed papers to bury opposing counsel rather than a thumb drive that can be indexed, searched, and analyzed. an individual would have to do a shitload of legwork here to actually uncover the patterns or do any critical analysis.

i used to work at a public institution that had "transparency" for its salaries in this same way. what it did not include was overtime or bonus structure information. and it obscured certain "sensitive" information and let some transfer payments be hidden as contracts. so, really we could look up any individual, standard employee for that specific year, but did not have access to a dataset that we could analyze ourselves. and it did not reveal contract information or larger budget allocations.