Poll Says Local Officials Interested In Transparency

A recent survey of National League of Cities (NLC) and Public Technology Institute (PTI) members discovered that using technology to promote municipal government transparency is a leading interest to local officials. According to the NLC, members highlighted five subjects elected officials need more information about:

• Technologies that promote transparency;
• Technology tools and practices that improve government performance
(internal) and service delivery (external);
• Web 2.0/Gov 2.0 and social media to engage the public;
• Technology and telecommunications practices to enhance economic development efforts; and
• New and emerging technology trends and issues.

The opportunities for transparency at the state and local levels have never been greater. The Internet allows direct, low cost access to virtually unlimited quantities of documents and data, while an array of telecommunications devices can instantly transmit information to millions of citizens simultaneously. But for all the power of these technologies, government cannot be fully transparent—and thus accountable—unless disclosure is de rigueur.

Members of the NLC deserve praise for their interest in transparency. But a number of states, counties, cities and school districts come up short in providing an appropriate level of transparency. For example, California’s budget site does not disclose line item expenditures, grants, state contracts, or employee compensation data. Massachusetts has no online database of state spending. New York posts its financial reports online, but in a PDF format that is not searchable.

A useful method of evaluating municipal, state and local government Web sites, a 10-point “Transparency Checklist,” has been developed by Sunshine Review (www.SunshineReview.org).

Sunshine Review is committed to promoting state and local government transparency. In 2008, Sunshine Review launched a wiki platform for measuring government Web content against what should be available. To date, Sunshine Review has evaluated the web content of all 50 states, 3140 counties 805 cities 1560 school districts.

Citizens, public officials and activists may review all evaluations by visiting the Sunshine Review site. Officials interested in improving their government website may contact a Sunshine Review Editor; Kristinpedia@sunshinereview.org.

To learn more about NLC’s Center for Research and Innovation’s work on technology issues, contact Julia Pulidindi at pulidindi@nlc.org.

To learn more about the Public Technology Institute, contact Dale Bowen, assistant executive director for program development, at dbowen@pti.org.