With considerable hoopla, the State of Utah unveiled its new transparency Web site Tuesday. Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert hailed it as a way for taxpayers to find out where their money goes.

We visited the site, transparent.utah.gov, on Wednesday. We were underwhelmed...

"The Health Department has $1.5 billion in expenses, according to the site. Of that, about $724 million goes to medical assistance, and about $265 million goes to inpatient hospitals. That category includes myriad individual welfare medical provider payments listed on the site, including one of $3,093,770 to an inpatient hospital that was posted July 31, 2008. Trouble is, the vendor/payee is listed as "not applicable," so we don't know who received the payment or even if it was a hospital. Specialized vendor searches for LDS Hospital and University Hospital came up blank."

Here's the last paragraph, positive note:

"Utah officials deserve credit for making many of the state's raw financial numbers available, but transparency has its limits, especially when identities are shielded. In terms of providing the "why" of the numbers, independent reporting on the dollars and sense of government remains more important than the numbers themselves. Because context is everything."