Horry County starts streaming meetings, and other innovation in transparency

Horry County in South Carolina is a great example of how a little innovation in transparency can go a long way. Horry County will stream its County Council meetings online, live.

This isn’t innovative in the sense that the county has invented a new tool, but it does mean that the county is using technology it to collaborate with citizens. Now, citizens that are interested in becoming engaged in local politics but are too busy with their daily lives can watch council meetings from home and experience government as if they were physically at the meetings. The fact that the county is streaming its meetings is symbolic of the county’s is readiness to open its doors and invite citizens in.

In terms of inventing new tools, innovation in transparency is moving forward. Top officials in government are working on a “National Dashboard for Open Data.” This project would put together available data from governments, but present it in a usable format that citizens and policy makers could use with ease. The officials involved in very preliminary brainstorms for such a project include San Francisco CIO Chris Vein, Beth Noveck, Obama’s deputy CTO for open government, and Federal CIO Vivek Kundra. One plan for furthering this project would involve taxpayer-funded lobbying associations such as the National Association of Counties and the National Governors Association.

This is only an idea right now, but there is little doubt that it is possible. What could be potentially in doubt is whether the participating government agencies would be transparent… about the creation of the transparency tool. With taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, which have to be forced to share information and hardly ever do it willfully, this may be a great opportunity to get them to practice what they preach.

Regardless, it seems that innovation in transparency will continue, inspiring some governments to take small steps with big and symbolic outcomes, and improving the quality of the information we already have. We look forward to seeing what comes next.

Idaho Senate approve school transparency bill

The Idaho Senate approved a bill which will make schools to publish their financial data today. Now schools with over 300 students will be more transparent.

The bill was approved after Lt. Gov. Brad Little cast the deciding vote. This was the second time the bill was proposed.

South Carolina bill banning taxpayer-funded lobbying failed

A few weeks ago, the South Carolina House of Representatives rejected a proposal that would have prohibited school districts from routing taxpayer money to fund bureaucratic advocacy groups, or taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.

Representative Boyd Brown introduced the budget amendment, which would eliminate taxpayer-funded lobbying and prohibit the use of tax dollars for dues at any “organization which employs a lobbyist.” The bill died March 18 by one vote.

The South Carolina Policy Center estimates that every dollar collected by government lobbying costs South Carolina’s economy between $1.60 and $1.82. And in the state, less than half of each dollar spent on public education reaches the classroom. You do the math.

While an outright ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying associations didn’t work out this time in South Carolina, one path concerned citizens can take is to follow the footsteps of journalists in New Hampshire, who ultimately made it so that New Hampshire taxpayer-funded lobbying associations have to be transparent. As usual, the prescription is for citizens to do the hard work to get governments to give up information.

Great sources for local government transparency

I wanted to draw everyones attention to a couple of great local government transparency initiatives. One is #localgovchat on Twitter. It’s got a lot of great information on how people are working at a local level to get government up online.

#localgovchat actually let me to OpenMuni, which is a “tool for cataloging case studies, best practices, and standards for open data and open source on the local level.” It has an amazing database of local open source initiatives, as well as great data set examples for local governments.

New Hampshire case opens up taxpayer-funded lobbying associations

Sunshine Review has been following the difficulties in tracking taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Tracking taxpayer-funded lobbying can be difficult because of the broad nature of lobbying. But it is the fact that these organizations have a complete lack of accountability to taxpayers which is a more insurmountable obstacle. The public has, as of yet, lacked the ability to demand transparency from them.

That may soon change. According to a New Hampshire court, when a nonprofit is largely paid for with government dollars, the nonprofit is subject to public agency disclosure requirements.

The New Hampshire firefighters union, concerned about potential corruption in a taxpayer-funded lobbying association, went to court asking for a list of the Local Government Center of New Hampshire salaries. The LGC is the home of the state’s association of municipalities, what Sunshine Review considers a taxpayer-funded lobbying association.
The association argued its salaries are not subject to public interest disclosure because it is a nonprofit.

In the end, however, the state supreme court ruled against the LGC, concluding the wages of the organization’s staff are paid for mostly by tax dollars and the work of the organization are programs for the benefit ultimately of taxpayers. Therefore, disclosure laws apply.

Transparency advocates should rejoice! It is, of course, perfectly reasonable that a nonprofit should try and keep the confidential information of its donors private. However, as far as keeping how taxpayer dollars are spent from the taxpayers, that is unacceptable. And New Hampshire citizens will now be able to do something about that.

Similarly, New Hampshire state legislator, Democratic State Representative Dick Watrous, had introduced a bill to compel the state’s nonprofits to affirmative disclosure. This would mean that taxpayer-funded lobbying associations would be included in state freedom of information act laws. The Watrous bill would have classified nonprofits as public agencies if they exceeded $100,000 in annual revenue and got half of their funding from state or local government. But the bill failed last week, with the New Hampshire House voting 214 to 80 to kill bill.

Nonprofits in New Hampshire were naturally united in opposition to the Watrous bill, declaring that the bill would have been a “huge burden” on nonprofits. Additionally, the associations stated:
*Nonprofits are “all about transparency,” making the bill unnecessary
*The disclosure requirements, including financial disclosure, would make people less willing to serve on nonprofit boards if they knew they could come under increased public scrutiny.

The Nonprofit Quarterly, the source of this news, states:

“All about transparency” counter-arguments don’t ring true about a sector that is as diverse as ours, particularly when some nonprofits are created or function to camouflage government activity.

By doing so, the journal brings back the focus on what we ought to be talking about: Right to know. All too often, government entities and, in this case, taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, use the inconvenience of delivering information as an argument against being held accountable. Hiding behind their 501(c) status, the associations feel as though their benign existence justifies their laziness in transparency.

However, it is clear that the activities of such organizations are largely funded by taxpayer dollars. Therefore, taxpayers have a right to know where this money is going. Perhaps these funds are being used in completely legitimate ways. But without having information that lets taxpayers know exactly what is going on with their money, there is no way of knowing.

The following questions have yet to be resolved, as listed in the Nonprofit Quarterly:

*When is a nonprofit organization sort of like a public agency for the purpose of levels of transparency and disclosure beyond what all nonprofits provide to the IRS in their Form 990s?

*At what point does the proportion of a nonprofit’s budget that comes from governmental funds make the nonprofit subject to public sector right-to-know laws?

*What kind of activities might a nonprofit do that would be considered “the public’s business?”

We hope to find out the answers to these questions, and if other state courts repeat the decision made in New Hampshire, we as citizens may have the tools to do this without obstacles.

Health care bill passes, what to ask for in terms of transparency

Some claim that the transparency movement is overdoing it, but the passing of the health care bill championed by President Obama is a great reason to focus even more on open government.

Yesterday night, Congress passed the health care bill, amidst allegations of backroom deals and lack of transparency. Perhaps partisan politics have led to that charge, but the administration’s failure to post the bill before it was to be voted on, as it promised, was certainly a disappointment. Looking forward, what can we expect in terms of transparency from the health care bill if and when it becomes law?

To begin with, there are two figures we want to keep track of:

1) Individuals are required to purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine of up to $750 or 2 percent of their income. How many people pay this fine? Where does that money end up?

2) The claims are that roughly 32 million Americans will have health care who previously didn’t. There should be a method instituted to see what the exact, measurable results of these new policies will be.

There are many other numbers cited in the support of this bill, but they may change drastically from the estimates made during the creation of the bill, since the assumptions change as policies are adopted. Still, citizens need to track the implicit promises that have been made, like the two figures listed above.

It will be interesting to see how the most transparent administration in history deals with this monumental change in American politics.

State, local officials should embrace transparency

This week marks “Sunshine Week,” highlighting the importance of transparency and freedom of information.

Government transparency matters because it guarantees access to information that empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable for the conduct of the public’s business and the spending of taxpayers’ money. Official accountability to the citizen is the cornerstone of self-government and liberty.

Without transparency, there can be no accountability. And, without accountability, there is no self-government, and “government of the people” becomes government over the people.

Opportunities for government transparency 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, the vast majority of state and local governments fail miserably at transparency.
On March 9, Sunshine Review announced the recipients of the “Sunny Award” to state and local government Web sites scoring a nine or 10 on a 10-point transparency checklist of information about taxes, budgets, contracts, audits, permits and officials’ contact information.

Since its inception in 2008, Sunshine Review has analyzed the Web sites of all 50 states, more than 3,140 counties, 805 cities and 1,560 school districts.

While we applaud the recipients, we hasten to point out the truly stunning truth that we were only able to recognize 39 out of more than 5,000 Web sites Sunshine Review analyzed. Less than 1 percent of state and local government Web sites fully share the information that should be available to every citizen, every taxpayer.

Freedom of Information Act laws do facilitate a degree of citizen scrutiny. But government agencies easily exploit a variety of FOIA loopholes, and even the savviest citizens can be stymied by the convoluted requirements.

The old bureaucratic dodges that transparency is too expensive, too time-consuming, too taxing of government copy machines just don’t hold up in the age of the Internet and social networking.

State and local governments today face unprecedented fiscal challenges and unprecedented opportunities for fundamental reforms. In the coming weeks and months, citizens can forge truly historic change in state and local government by reforming the budget process, privatizing services, and returning professional full-time legislatures and councils to more traditional part-time bodies, among many other worthy initiatives.

Citizen engagement is crucial. Success depends on transparency, accountability and the ability of informed citizens to secure the information they need to participate in reform and hold elected officials accountable.

Long before Google searches, the Founders crafted the Bill of Rights precisely because freedom of information and an informed, engaged citizenry are essential to our form of government.

State and local officials owe their constituents transparency. It’s time to embrace open government fully.

Originally posted at the Washington Examiner

You and I hold them accountable

The Reason Magazine blog has a funny post today titled It Depends on What the Meaning of the Word ‘Many’ Is:

In his recent interview with Fox News, President Obama promised that “the final provisions [of the health care bill] are going to be posted many days before this thing passes.” Yet The New York Times says a House vote is expected on Sunday, and “the Senate could pass the reconciliation bill [making changes to the health care bill sought by some Democratic congressmen] as soon as next week.” According to The Washington Post, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the health care bill “would be posted to the Web site of the House Rules Committee sometime Thursday morning.” As of noon Eastern time, it does not seem to be there.

Wait, that isn’t funny.

The easy part of transparency is demanding information, and listening to promises. All of this reverence paid to the idea of transparency may even serve the purpose of making people more aware of it as an issue. However, we have to hold politicians to their promises, not just ask for them. And we have to look at and try to understand information, not just demand good freedom of information laws.

For example, Attorney General Eric Holder had drawn much attention to his commitment to transparency. The fact that government has experienced absent accountability, selective transparency, and increased secrecy under the current administration is less touted. This article on the Examiner: Chicago draws attention to the fact that, while elected officials are basking in their own praises about how open and transparent they’ve been, they have failed to deliver on any of those promises—it is just praise and promises and more praise.

So as a small reminder: don’t forget. Don’t forget when someone promises information, and doesn’t give it to you. And hold someone to their transparency promises, even if the promises are vague. Remind officials of what they have stated they will do, and if they still fail to deliver, remind them with your ballot.

Illinois Counties responding to SR information requests

I’m currently in the middle of requesting lobbying information from all Illinois counties, including membership and dues information for taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. I wrote yesterday about the fogginess involved in taxpayer-funded lobbying, and I’m hoping that this next step of getting counties’ information will help clear up that fog—add some sunshine, if you will.

As I told some of the county officials I spoke with, this isn’t a “gotcha!” operation. Sunshine Review believes in affirmative disclosure and we recognize that transparency is the best way to keep government accountable to its citizens. We see it more as a preventative step rather than a sting operation.

(Incidentally, one thing I didn’t mention in my blog post yesterday about the Pacific Research Institute’s new study on taxpayer-funded lobbying is that transparency prevents corruption, and transparency is the mark of a non-corrupt government. Regardless of what comes first, it’s good transparency comes with good things.)

As a result of the new FOIA law in Illinois currently being contested, I’ve actually received most counties’ replies and am working on sorting through them. One county has actually found it “too burdensome.” I’ll hold off posting the guilty party’s name until I follow up with them and see if we can’t work something out, but generally speaking, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how responsive and helpful Illinois county officials have been in getting me information. This is truly in the spirit of collaboration.

Taxpayer-funded lobbying in California gives glimpse of other states

I’ve written before about taxpayer-funded lobbying and how obscure that information can be. A lot of taxpayer-funded lobbying is hidden, not reported, or not acknowledged as such.

A new research paper by the Pacific Research Institute clears some of that obscurity up. State-Level Lobbying and Taxpayers: How Much Do We Really Know? focuses on California while also surveying other states and gives insight as to the general nature of taxpayer-funded lobbying. The paper looks at lobbying in California for 2007 and 2008.

One interesting thing that may be generalized to taxpayer-funded lobbying as a whole is the amount of adjustments the writers of the paper had to make in order to try and get an accurate figure for taxpayer-funded lobbying. For example, of the $30.9 million reported as spent by labor unions, $8.1 million can be properly classified as taxpayer-funded lobbying. And this pattern continues in sectors “Government”; “Public Employees”; and “Education.”

It study breaks down the amount spent on taxpayer-funded lobbying in a powerful way: one in every four dollars spent on lobbying in California was taxpayer money.

The study ends up concluding that there is a need for further research in taxpayer-funded lobbying. The authors recommend improved lobbying disclosure laws that are stricter and more transparent and making accessibility a focus of these laws. We couldn’t agree more.

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