Even though budget information is public and readily available, it is also not presented in a way conducive to answering complex questions about spending in specific areas or on important initiatives. However, knowing the answers to these questions is imperative for making informed and aligned budgeting decisions to support better outcomes within our communities. This session will explore how fiscal maps can help and how you, as a finance professional can extract key funding details from the myriad of complex budget documents and distill that data into a format that lawmakers, advocates, and community members can use and understand. Speakers will highlight examples from the Children's Funding Project to show how complex budget information for government children service programs can be summarized and how to apply these lessons to other critical program areas.