Oklahoma Counties Receive Failing Grades After Transparency Evaluations
For Immediate Release
Oklahoma Counties Receive Failing Grades After Transparency Evaluations
Only eight of the seventy seven counties receive passing marks
Chicago, August 11 — Oklahoma Counties overwhelmingly receive failing marks when it comes to transparency according to the website Sunshine Review (www.sunshinereview.org). A project of the Sam Adams Alliance, the government transparency website has released transparency grades for all county websites in Oklahoma. 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. 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.
According to the Sunshine Review findings, the most transparent county is Oklahoma County which received a B-minus. Beaver and Tulsa each received a C-minus, meeting five points on the checklist. The most revealing finding by the Sunshine Review community is that fifty seven counties in Oklahoma do not have a website, bringing the total number of counties failing to be open and honest with the public to sixty nine.
“The Sunshine Review community believes every county in the nation has a responsibility to make basic information easily available to the taxpayer,” said Kristin McMurray, managing editor of Sunshine Review. “We urge Oklahoma citizens to use the results of these evaluations to push for reform in their counties.”
Sunshine Review is a wiki website 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.
Even though Oklahoma Counties are lacking transparency, county governments can look at improvements made by the state to become more open and honest with the public they serve.
“Oklahoma taxpayers have benefited from Oklahoma Open Books (openbooks.ok.gov) at the state level,” said Brian Downs, Executive Director of Oklahomans for Responsible Government. “County governments must follow the state’s lead. It is extremely concerning that not a single county has information in several categories of transparency, with only three posting how they spend taxpayer dollars.”
Go to the Sunshine Review Evaluation of Oklahoma county websites page to see how open and honest your county is compared to all counties in the Sooner state.
Contacts:
Kristin McMurray, Managing Editor
Sunshine Review
312-920-0080 ext. 311
kmcmurray@samadamsalliance.org
