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!

IL FOIA law under attack (again)

Last year it took the Illinois State Legislature less then 15 days to limit the new and improved state Freedom of Information Act when it added exemptions for performance evaluations of teachers, administrators and superintendents.

Other public employees thought this was a grand idea, which lead to HB 5154, which would exempt all performance evaluations (even though it was allowed even the under previous version of the law). In July, Gov. Pat Quinn partially vetoed the bill, saying that only emergency personnel would be exempted.

But the bill is back from the dead, and expected to be voted on during next weeks veto session. The Illinois Press Association (IPA) is anticipating three possible outcomes:

• Representatives could approve the governor’s amendment and send it to the Senate (IPA thinks it’s unlikely)
• The House could override the veto with a three-fifths majority vote (which they need only more to do) and send the bill to the Senate (IPA believe this is possible)
• Or the House could do nothing, which would kill the bill and leave FOIA intact (IPA preferred)

I’m with the IPA, option number three please.

Illinois Press Association sues Rockford School District 205

The Illinois Press Association (IPA) and The Rock River Times are suing the Rockford School District 205 for refusing to respond to numerous FOIA requests for a letter detailing the removal of Auburn principal Dr. Patrick Hardy.

The IPA has said that Rockford is “one of the worst FOIA offenders [they] have encountered.”

The Rock River Times has been trying to attain the letter for two months, but school officials have repeatedly refused to answer the public records request. The district even refused to even make a statement about the lawsuit as well.

It’ll be one of the first cases challenged under Illinois’s new Freedom of Information Act law.

Lobbying in IL: The numbers lie

Last week, Sunshine Review released a study showing over $6.2 million in taxpayer-funded lobbying by counties in Illinois. $6.2 million is a lot of money no matter how you look at it, and regardless of the benefits and consequences of taxpayer-funded lobbying, this information should be proactively disclosed: governments should tell citizens upfront how much they’re spending on lobbying, why, and what they’re lobbying for.

The numbers uncovered by Sunshine Review are significant. Even more significant is the fact that they aren’t complete totals for the counties, only partial figures.

For example, one of the most open counties was Champaign County. Champaign was the only county that didn’t find Sunshine Review’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request “unduly burdensome” and sent information for all of the county. Most people don’t consider the sheer size of a county: a county has several departments and agencies, not to mention offices of individual officials. And most counties wont accept a FOIA request for countywide information. But Champaign County accepted my request as a county-wide request, and sent it to all of its departments and offices asking them to comply. This was the only county I did not have to negotiate my request with. For most counties, my original request was cut back greatly after several phone calls and e-mails. Champaign, however, just sent me information, including e-mails between lobbying entities and the county.

Even then, it was unclear whether Champaign has no lobbying contracts or whether they just didn’t send any. Every separate department in the county responded to the individual items I requested, but there was no general letter explaining what was and wasn’t applicable to the county. This is not a complaint about the county’s response, about which I’ve been gushing throughout this blog; rather, it’s a complaint about the complicated, convoluted nature of public records requests for items that should be public in the first place. After requesting lobbying records from counties, I should be able to answer whether a county contracts lobbyists or not. But I can’t, not conclusively.

This uncertainty makes it clear that while our report shows a good picture of lobbying in Illinois counties, it is not a complete picture. And citizens and journalists shouldn’t have to guess where their money goes: governments have a duty to report to us.

IL spends $6.2 million on taxpayer-funded lobbying

State and local governments are not transparent in how taxpayer dollars are spent and the people’s business is conducted. An especially good example is taxpayer funded lobbying.

Taxpayer-funded lobbying is the use of public funds to lobby for even more taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers pay twice for this: not only do their hard earned dollars pay to hire lobbyists, but citizens must also foot the bill for the increased government spending resulting from the “successes” of these special interests.

Most citizens have no idea that tax dollars are spent to hire lobbyists because without affirmative disclosure laws, taxpayer-funded lobbying is rarely shared with citizens or journalists. Only through time consuming (and frequently frustrating) Freedom of Information Act requests is this information pried from the government.

Beginning in March, 2010, Sunshine Review sent Freedom of Information Act requests to all 102 Illinois counties. In an analysis released this week, data from the 10 most populous counties alone shows $6.2 million dollars spent between 2005 and 2010.

The Sunshine Review analysis looked at lobbying contracts and membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Taxpayer-funded lobbying associations are groups that are funded at least in part by public dollars. In turn, they lobby for the collective interests of government bodies. In total, 31 lobbyists represent the counties, and the counties hold at least 69 memberships to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.

What’s needed is a higher standard of transparency in state and local government. State legislation and local ordinances requiring affirmative disclosure—not only in Illinois but around the country—would help citizens scrutinize spending.

Government transparency saves money: it prevents fraud and it brings light to questionable spending. Perhaps the $6.2 million spent in lobbying by Illinois counties is justifiable. But who is to say? The people who can truly answer that question, citizens, are being denied their voice in government by having this information kept from them.

Visit Sunshine Review for more information and for county specific data.

• Champaign County
• Cook County
• DuPage County
• Kane County
• Lake County
• McHenry County
• McLean County
• Peoria County
• Will County
• Winnebago County

This was also posted on State Budget Solutions.

Who lobbies Cook County? More importantly: who does Cook County lobby?

We give Cook County in Illinois a B- on the information it discloses on its website. Which is a decent grade. One of the check marks the county misses on our checklist is for “Lobbying.” The county does not disclose on its website what lobbying organizations it pays dues to, or what lobbyists it hires to represent the county before the Illinois State Legislature or the federal government.

Most local governments have lobbyists. And because these lobbyists are a part of public affairs, they should be disclosed.

Cook County is now posting lobbying reports online of those who lobby them. Which is great! The section of Cook County’s website is called “Lobbyist Online. The county is the largest of Illinois’s 102 counties and it contains the largest city in the state, Chicago. Naturally, this is interesting information:

The site, proposed by County Clerk David Orr and a bi-partisan group of commissioners, also lists how much lobbyists were paid.

Orr said 188 lobbyists representing 89 businesses reported on time. They contacted about 60 government officials and were paid a total of $1.12 million.
“You can track who they were lobbying and, for the most part, why,” Orr said. “They made 576 contacts with those roughly 60 people, and that’s just in the first half of 2010.”

Still, while this is great information, it still doesn’t make up for the fact that Cook County still does not disclose what lobbyists it contracts. Cook County as a whole has at least one lobbyist, as reported to the state of Illinois, and its departments and subsidiaries have more. Not to mention the dues paid to organizations like the Metro Counties of Illinois.

The county’s efforts in increasing transparency are laudable, but it can still take the next step forward. Lobbying by counties isn’t rare. Especially because of its prevalent nature, local governments should take the initiative to making that information available to its taxpayers. If anything, they should do it to get an extra point on our checklist and upgrade their B- to a B. Or, you know. For its citizens.

School forced to return $740,000 after audit

Illinois East St. Louis School District 189 will have to return over $740,000 of federal funds. The school district will return $650,000 for failing to file paperwork on time and $81,360 for noncompliance with federal regulations prohibiting large cash surpluses in district bank accounts.

This is not entirely surprising, as the school has not been transparent in its spending efforts and earned a “D-” transparency grade from Sunshine Review. The school board has refused to comment on the situation, and has even hung up on local reporters.

Simply calling the board must have taken some sleuthing, as their contact information is not posted on the website. The same reporters have alleged the school spent $3.1 million on consultants (some who are relatives of politicians), as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel.

These situations make it clear that citizens need timely access to government spending. School districts like 189 should be posting their checkbook registers online to reassure parents that the district is practicing good government.

FOIA and text messages

Perhaps the immediately obvious effect of government transparency is transparency as a tool to battle corruption and to uncover unethical behavior.

Social media, the internet, and technology in general consistently change the scope of public records. So it makes sense that most people don’t consider text messages when using open records laws, since it is a relatively recent technological development.

Of course, many government officials use government-issued phones to fulfill their daily duties. And because of the casual nature of text messages, they can be particularly revealing as to the nature of relationships.

In Illinois, the Daily Herald was able to confirm suspicions that two Elgin police officers were breaking ethics rules by having a romantic relationship. They did this by requesting text messages exchanged between the officers’ phones. Being able to FOIA for those text messages, and the city’s ability to fulfil that request, was crucial to uncovering that scandal.

But not every city is able to provide those records. In Des Plaines, Illinois, the city mayor had to bar text messages between city employees after the city was unable to fulfill a FOIA request asking for text message records. Until the city figures out how to resolve that issue, communication must be in an archivable format. It makes sense for the mayor to take the issue seriously, because when questions of openness aren’t resolved locally, they will be resolved in other ways. In Pennsylvania, the Wind Gap requested text messages from police Chief Craig Armitage and in March of this year, Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has ruled that the borough must get a copy from its cell phone provider of a record with the text messages. Kudos to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records for making the city accountable to its citizens. The borough originally responded that it did not keep such records. If no such text message record exists, the open records office ruled, the borough is required to provide an affidavit saying that.

There seems to be much that isn’t decided yet on the matter of open government and text messages, and it seems many governments aren’t prepared to make such records available. Please share any experiences or information you have regarding text messages and open records requests.

(I began researching the matter after joining today’s #FOIAchat, a live chat on Twitter every Friday from 2-3 pm EST. I’ve found it to be a thought-provoking, and it’s a great resource for speaking with open government advocates and FOIA experts.)

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.

It’s Sunshine Week!

We’ll get Sunshine Week started right, with our very own executive director writing in the Washington Examiner about how transparency gives people power to make government work for them, and how Sunshine Week is the time to get started:

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.

Read about that here.

What is Sunshine Week? As Kansas Watchdog notes, Sunshine Week marks an annual effort to focus attention on the importance of government transparency, with print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, school and other open government advocates participating. For example, Open Secrets is participating.

Sunshine Week is already proving worthwhile. For example, the Sunshine Project announced late last week attempts a statewide transparency effort.

We look forward to seeing what other government efforts to be open pop up this week. Spring is the perfect time for sun.

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