In the wake of retirees' losses piling into the millions from the Enron and Worldcom scandals, the president's budget proposes a much needed infusion of cash into the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), part of which is earmarked to help the public in efforts to track corporate wrongdoing. In a rare exception to this administration's growing reputation for secrecy, the president's proposal of $841.5 million for the SEC -- almost double what the president proposed for fiscal year 2002 -- includes $100 million for upgrading the Commission's information technology systems, which includes the publicly accessible EDGAR corporate filings system, BNA reports. EDGAR, which held promise for a wave of public scrutiny of corporate activities when launched, will make technical changes that would improve the public's ability to gain access to corporate filings, if the money is eventually approved by Congress. For many years the SEC has been hampered in its ability to track corporations as it was starved for cash, suffered high staff turnover and a political environment friendly to business interests. Separately, the SEC also ordered mutual funds to begin disclosing their proxy voting records. Investors in mutual funds often sign proxy statements allowing the fund managers to vote in corporate shareholder decisions on the investor's behalf. Proxy voting records had been a closely guarded secret until the commission voted unanimously to force disclosure.