State Spending Explorer

Business · Data tool

See who Massachusetts state agencies and departments pay, for what, and how much, from 2010 to today. Start with a question below, or build your own chart and table.

Official records: This explorer is the Cape Ann Current's own analysis of public data. For the official record of any state payment, please visit the Comptroller of the Commonwealth's spending site, CTHRU, or the Office of the Comptroller.

How to read this data (start here)

What a "vendor" is: Anyone the Commonwealth pays. That includes companies and nonprofits, but also cities and towns, school districts, transit authorities like the MBTA, the University of Massachusetts and the state universities, other states and even people. Use "Kind of vendor" to choose which you see.
Contract: The state bought something: goods, services, construction, technology, consulting, or human and social services from groups like elder care and mental health agencies.
Grant or state aid: Money given for a purpose, with nothing bought in return. This is how most money reaches cities and towns (local aid, school aid, road money), the MBTA and the School Building Authority.
Loan or special payment: Loans, refunds, settlements and other one-time payments.
Why UMass and the state universities appear: Public colleges get their state funding through payments recorded under names like "UMS - Summary Trust Payment." We show these as the college's name. They are transfers to state schools, not contracts won by bidding.
Why a city like Gloucester is a "vendor": The state pays cities and towns local aid, school aid, road money and grants, and sometimes pays them for services, like police details or rent. Those all appear as payments to the city.
Payments, not contract values: These are dollars actually paid in each fiscal year (July 1 to June 30). They are not the full value of a contract when it was signed, which can be paid over several years.
Vendor names: The state's records often list one organization under several names or abbreviations, like "MBTA" and "Mass Bay Transportation Auth." We show the clearest name. These are yearly totals by vendor, not individual contracts or grants.
Category of work: Based on the Comptroller's spending categories (object classes), in plain words. Official definitions are in the Comptroller's Expenditure Classification Handbook.
Labels and group names: Certification types (minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, disability-owned, LGBT-owned and small business), the race and ethnicity groups in the diversity report tables, cabinet offices, departments and procurement levels are the labels the Commonwealth uses in its data and programs. The Cape Ann Current did not create or define them. "Category of work" and "What the money was for" are our plain-word versions of the Comptroller's spending categories.

Start with a question

Who gets state contracts

Grants and state aid

Cape Ann

Diverse and small businesses

All state spending

Build your own

Group and certification names are the Commonwealth's own labels from its data and programs, not ones the Cape Ann Current created. Categories of work are plain-word versions of the Comptroller's spending categories.

About this data

Source. State data from the Comptroller of the Commonwealth and the Supplier Diversity Office. For official records, visit the Comptroller's spending site, CTHRU.
Contracts, grants and loans follow the Comptroller's own spending categories. Official definitions are in the Comptroller's Expenditure Classification Handbook.
Procurement level comes from the Comptroller. Level III is the executive departments, which must follow the state's buying rules, including the small business and supplier diversity programs.
Certifications come from the Commonwealth's certified and small business lists.
Diversity program results come from the Supplier Diversity Office's annual reports, fiscal 2017 to 2025.
Each answer shows at most 100 rows. The explorer is for looking things up, not for copying the whole data set.

Using a chart or number from this tool? Credit it as: Source: Cape Ann Current State Spending Explorer, from state data, with a link to this page. For official records, use CTHRU.