Sunshine Review Releases Wisconsin County Transparency Evaluations
Racine County Web site gets C- from watchdog group
ByJournal Times staff
Monday, Jul. 6, 2009, 2:14 pm
RACINE COUNTY — It might be passing, but Racine County gets a C- for transparency on its Web site http://racineco.com, based on the findings of a project conducted by the Sam Adams Alliance, a conservative organization from Chicago that promotes government transparency and accountability.
The group’s online project, the Sunshine Review http://www.sunshinereview.org, released transparency scores for all 72 county Web sites in Wisconsin. Each county was evaluated against a 10-point transparency checklist and issued a grade to determine how open and honest they are with the public they serve.
According to the Sunshine Review findings, Brown, Dane, Outagamie and Ozaukee County Web sites received the highest marks, meeting seven points on the checklist, receiving an overall grade of B minus. Jackson County received one point, while Green, Florence and Lafayette County managed to receive two points, the four counties each received failing grades. Two counties don’t have Web sites.
The checklist, developed by Sunshine Review, requires information regarding budgets, meetings, elected and administrative officials, permits and zoning, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records and taxes be made easily accessible online.
Racine County missed points for not having posted on the county Web site information about contracts, lobbying and public records and only partial information about taxes.
“The Sunshine Review community believes every county in the nation has a responsibility to make basic information easily available to the taxpayer,” Kristin McMurray, managing editor of Sunshine Review, said in a news release. “We urge Wisconsin citizens to use the results of these evaluations to push for reform in their counties.”
What is Sunshine Review?
Sunshine Review is a wiki Web site that collects and shares information about transparency, government spending, political corruption, taxpayer-funded lobbying and open records laws.
It provides a way for citizens to keep tabs on their government, hold it accountable, and reform wasteful, fraudulent, and corrupt behavior uncovered by measures of transparency.
