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IL boosts spending transparency

Today the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) released the statement of revenues and expenditures, outlining financial activities from 2010 and the first quart of 2011. Why is this so significant? Normally we would not be seeing these figures unti 2012.

GOMB has adopted a new schedule of reporting that will make financial statements for the state budget available on an annual and quarterly basis, much like how reporting is conducted in the private sector. Illinois’ new reporting methods will not affect the way audits are conducted, however, and those will not be released until a year or more after revenue and costs are available.

Timeliness is often forgotten about when discussing transparency, but real time reporting, or just more frequent, is vital to the access of government data. Bravo Illinois for taking this step!

Sunlight Foundation: “How accurate are lobbying figures?”

The Sunlight Foundation, our ally in transparency, is currently featuring a blog of mine on the disparity between lobbying data and actual lobbying:

A closer look at the requirements makes it clear how easy these requirements are to shirk, and how much they leave out. Consider the fact that they don’t include a lot of what “lobbying” is: influencing legislation. Lobbying disclosure laws do not take into account “grassroots lobbying,” which includes urging citizens to contact their legislators to support or oppose legislation.

Click here to read the full blog, and read others posts on the Sunlight Foundation blog while you’re at it.

Cuyahoga County Council fails to keep transparency campaign promise

Six Cuyahoga County Council members-elect are already failing to uphold their campaign pledges for greater government transparency.

These six members-elect met in a closed meeting this past Friday to decide on who will serve as the new council president. This is the same behavior they promised to leave in the past prior to elections according to their own words, which was reported in the Dealer-Cleveland.com Voter Guide questionnaire. You can read them for yourself here.

Open government bills in Wyoming

There are three legislative proposals set to make government more transparent in Wyoming. One bill would require a response to Freedom of Information Act requests in three days. Currently, the Wyoming Sunshine Law does not specify response times.

Another proposed change would require courts to expedite cases involving public records requests, while the third bill would require government bodies to record executive sessions.

Forcing governments to comply to a time frame in answering public records requests is a great step towards more openness. Tightening response times for FOIA responses was one way Illinois dealt with its government transparency problems. And as far as recording executive sessions–what better way to ensure that all citizens have access to open government. Doing so would be in the spirit of the Wyoming Public Meeting Law.

Is Detroit covering for Kilpatrick?

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s computer has gone missing. Kilpatrick hasn’t seen it, and city officials say they haven’t seen what happened to it either.

“His computer’s got legs,” said attorney Norman Yatooma, who is representing the family of exotic dancer Tamara Greene, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in April 2003, supposedly after working at a party hosted by the ex-mayor.

City officials have not made increased efforts to find the missing computer, which may store critical e-mails for Kilpatrick’s upcoming trial, and say that the e-mails would not be stored on it regardless.

Terrance Sims, who is in charge of the city’s e-mail system, reported that the city’s servers automatically purge e-mails weekly. Sims also said that e-mails are not monitored due to lack of resources or funding.

While this may not be illegal, it’s cutting it awfully close. First of all it flys in the face of the Department of Technology, Management, and Budget’s recommendations. Also, the city moves very quickly to destroy the e-mails, which are counted as public records.

I find Sims excuse to be dubious—especially when so many open source options exist that would allow the storage of e-mails. Which leaves me with the nagging question of would Kilpatrick’s e-mails have implicated himself or others still working for the city? Hopefully, we’ll find out more when Kilpatrick takes the stand next week.

Ohio Governor-elect reluctantly opens up hiring process

Ohio Governor-elect John Kasich (R) is not shy about explaining why he’ll post resumes of public job candidates: because he’s being forced to.

Kasich solicited resumes for 4,700 state government jobs, including some high-ranking positions.

He feels that the fact that the hiring process will be public will prevent him from filling all of those jobs. “Why have I felt strongly about this?” Kasich asked reporters. “Well, let me tell you why. When a person applies for another job, it doesn’t make their current employer happy.” He continued:

“Maybe the people that demand all of this openness ought to think about how they want their kids treated. Do they want their kids to be jeopardized because they’re trying to improve themselves and look for another job?”

Kasich was originally arguing that because an external, non-government organization was keeping the resumes, they did not fall under the Freedom of Information Act. But after talking with his lawyer, Kasich realized that it was a fight he was going to lose and has decided to make the resumes public.

Are women better at achieving Gov 2.0?

You bet. And I say that because I’m a woman.

But in all seriousness, others—of the male gender—are willing to back me up. Mainly, Andrea Di Maio, who is VP of Gartner Research. Di Maio hasn’t conducted any official surveys, but has been spoken to several hundred people around the world for the past three years on web 2.0 and government 2.0 development. And at a recent Open Government at Gartner Symposium Di Maio observed that women tend to be “nimbler” at implementing Gov. 2.0 strategies.

My comment about women and government 2.0 is rooted in how many interactions with female CIO and IT leaders have shown a better appreciation of the potential of these technologies, but also a smarter way of striking a balance between internal vs. external collaboration and the blurring of boundaries between the two.

I do not mean to say that men do not get it. On the other hand, while there seems to be an overwhelming majority of men among the government 2.0 evangelist community (some of whom may have been offended by my observation), women on the government 2.0 implementation side (i.e. not those who preach, but those who have to deploy and use these technologies) seem to be faster and nimbler in getting to the bottom of it.

So, even without online surveys, interviews and desk research, I think I am in a position to state, sadly as a man, that women really get this more than we do. It would be interesting to figure out why, rather than fighting the evidence, and this is where I hope I’ll be able to do some research.

Apparently, some men in the Gov. 2.0 field were offended by Di Maio’s observations, saying that men are just as quick to grasp and implement the concepts.

So, I put the age-old question to you:

Wikileaks scandal: what does “radical transparency” mean?

Wikileaks is, like Sunshine Review, a wiki, which means that it is (generally) open to all to contribute to to make edits. It is an ideal platform for collecting information.
Wikileaks expressly exists “to publish original source material,” which has gotten it much negative attention.

The site had come under fire earlier this year, and has again stirred the pot. Wikileaks posted a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables.

The Huffington Post mentions that two concerns with transparency are security and privacy. It seems uncontroversial to note that controlling information and leaks provides vital advantages in a time of war.

But the question people are asking is: is this transparency? One change in transparency is the internet and social media:

Increasingly, citizens are turning to the Internet for data, policy and services. Alongside the efforts of government webmasters at .gov websites, citizens will find the rich stew of social media, media conglomerates or mashups that use government and private data.

But is transparency the motivation behind the leaks? Derrick Ashong, also at the HuffPo, wonders:

Exposing the cover-up of civilian murders in Iraq is clearly important work. Publishing private emails of diplomats strikes me as… sort of petty.

However, it is only private e-mails at the ground level. A bigger picture view of the information leaked reveals insight into North and South Korea’s potential future, funding of extremist groups by public officials in Eritrea, and several U.S. diplomatic failures. It’s not mere gossip or tidbits; it’s new chapters to the stories.

So the information is valuable. But that leaves us with questions still:

1) Is this government transparency?
2) Do the ends justify the means?

and, most importantly perhaps,

3) What are the implications for the future of the relationships between governments and citizens?

For more on the leaked cables and the insight they offer, see the Times article.

Chicago mayoral hopeful calls for more transparency

With long-time Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announcing his last term, aspiring mayors are already trying to set themselves apart from other potential candidates.

Gery Chico has decided to focus on transparency. Chico unveiled a transparency initiative today that aims to make government information and data more available and accessible to Chicagoans. The idea is called”Sunshine Chicago,” and it would use the city’s existing data site as a foundation to establish a central clearinghouse that pulls data from all City of Chicago departments to make it easily accessible. Currently, the City’s existing site only provides data from FOIA requests and does not include responses.

“For far too long, government has not effectively kept people informed about how the city spends its money and the way we make important decisions,” Chico said. He noted that Chicago leased its parking meters for more than $1 billion two years ago, and of that only $76 million is left. “Many Chicagoans want to know – where did all that money go? With this initiative, citizens won’t have to ask.”

By opening up more data to the public, Chico’s initiative would make it easier for web developers, entrepreneurs and citizens to create innovative tools that improve transparency and access at no additional cost to the city.

· Improving access to an unprecedented amount of data;
· Empowering citizens to create innovative applications;
· Providing a responsive outlet for citizen ideas and feedback.

Sunshine Review gives the city of Chicago a B- on website transparency, a decent score. But there is much more to transparency than our checklist, that is merely the start. Hopefully, Chico’s bringing of transparency to the spotlight will get other candidates talking about how to make Chicago more open.

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