Mayor exceeds open meetings requirements in South Carolina

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin in South Carolina changed the meeting times of the Columbia City Council meetings. His goal: to allow more citizens to participate. It worked.

Since 2005, the council has met during working hours, making it difficult for some to make the meetings. The mayor pushed to change the meeting times to accomodate more citizens, and also considered the fact that Wednesday is a big church night for his consituents, chosing Tuesday instead.

The first meeting at the new time was Tuesday, October 19, and it was a success. The mayor’s reaction: “Wow. The room is packed.’ One woman remarked that it was the first time she had been able to make a meeting, and she planned on becoming more involved.

The South Carolina Open Meetings Law is the law that governs public meetings in the state, which are defined as a quorom of public officials convening to decide the public business. The law, however, is the minimum. In order to fully embrace the spirit of open government, officials need to follow the lead of Mayor Benjamin, who understand that it is important to collaborate with citizens.

Senator Tom Davis wants transparency for South Carolina

South Carolina Republican Senator Tom Davis has open government for South Carolina on his sights. Stating that the state suffers from closed government and is “among the most secretive in the nation,” the Senator wants to change this.

Unlike many transparency promises from politicians, the Senator has concrete plans for how to approach openness in South Carolina. As far as legislative transparency goes, he would promote legislation mandating on the record voting for every vote taken by either chamber of the legislature. He would also promote stricter disclosure requirements for lawmakers in reporting their income.

Davis also wants all taxpayer-funded expenses at the state and local level to be posted in an online checkbook. The checkbook would be maintained by Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom. As far as the cost is concerned, it “would be paid for many times over by the savings” that come with expanded transparency and accountability.

Davis also sees what we’ve been saying: providing open records at exorbitant costs is akin to not providing the records at all. The effect is the same: the public is kept in the dark. He state “information the taxpayers pay for should always be freely available for them to inspect.” This is the section where Davis’s open government plan is a little more vague. Besides “enacting reform,” it is unclear how information will be free to citizens. Merely stating that can prove to be an unfunded mandate, where local governments need to comply to providing information for free without having allotted resources for the fees associated with searching for, preparing, and delivering the records.

Still, the Senator’s commitment to transparency is laudable. Sunshine Review rates the South Carolina state website at a “B” for the amount of information disclosed, and South Carolina get a combined grade of “D.” Obviously, there’s some room for improvement. Davis’s steps for transparency are a great place to start.

South Carolina officials don’t know open meetings law exists

Three current and one former commissioner of a South Carolina fire district face charges they violated the South Carolina Open Meetings Law by barring a reporter from a meeting. A judge signed their summonses this week. Hometown News reporter Jay King says officials threw him out of a June meeting and ignored his explanation of the Freedom of Information Act. The Holly Springs Fire and Rescue commissioners are set to appear in court in late September.

This is the first time a criminal case has has been brought against South Carolina public officials over the 1974 statute.

Chairman Ryan Phillips acknowledges the board didn’t follow the law but says it didn’t know the law at the time. This actually seems sincere. Other instances of citizens and reporters being kicked out of public meetings make it clear that the guilty parties either didn’t care about the law, or didn’t consider whether the law exists. They simply knew they could use their authority to box-out inconvenient watchdogs and ensure secrecy. However, the officials seem to sincerely not have known.

This may even be a worse offense. But who is to blame?

Perhaps the attorney general. Generally speaking, it is often the attorney general that is the Freedom of Information officer in states.

South Carolina, however, doesn’t need a scapegoat. It needs a solution. Local officials in every state need to be educated as to what their Freedom of Information Acts require of them, both the public records and public meetings portions. This is an easily justifiable use of taxpayer money.

Often we focus on citizen education in order to hold government accountable. But the government has to do its part, too.

Listen up Sen. McConnell, transparency is not a “fad”

Okay, I’m annoyed. According to FitsNews, South Carolina Senate President Glenn F. McConnell-R, recently called government transparency a “fad.”

Uh, no. Transparency is now part of the political landscape, bud. Furthermore, news that on-record voting is just now being presented is baffling. This is a best practice that should have been implemented ages ago. I’m willing to even go past FitsNews’ desire for an electronic voting record. I want an electronic voting record reported in real-time with a public API so we can manipulate that data in oh-so-many ways.

Hear that McConnell? Transparency is just going to get bigger and better. It’s here, it’s amazing, get used to it!

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.

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.

Taxpayer-funded lobbying in South Carolina schools

Most people expect schools to focus on education, but in South Carolina institutions of higher education, the money goes to lobbying.

A recent report has exposed taxpayer-funded lobbying in South Carolina school, with Clemson University lobbying more than any other public or private institution in the state at $1.7 million in the last decade. It’s easy to see how it got to that point when the school has a full-time lobbyist in D.C., a separate contract with a lobbying firm, and it pays its top lobbyist over $180,000.

Has it paid off for the university? Lobbying helped the university:
*Land a $45 million Energy Department grant for wind research in November
*$3 million in federal funding for the International Center for Automotive Research
*Get Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Energy Secretary Steven Chu to visit Clemson.

Clemson may be the biggest spender, but it is not the only one. Claflin University, a private institution in Orangeburg was the second-highest spender, spending $970,000 from 2000 to 2009. And University of South Carolina had a contract valued at more than $200,000 a year over the past five years with a lobbying firm, and currently employs two full-time state lobbyists each making more than $100,000 a year.

One criticism of taxpayer-funded lobbying is that members of Congress who represent the institutions already work to get federal funds for them. This is true for Clemson University:
*Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., successfully requested $1 million for Clemson’s veterinary institute this year
*Representatives Bob Inglis and John Spratt got $1.4 million for a Clemson cyber-institute last year.
Since it seems that lobbying isn’t necessary to a school’s financial wellness, lobbying expenditures are especially noteworthy when universities continue raising prices and tuition.

It’s unclear how this information will influence future school spending. But is obvious that, from now on, schools will have an greater sense of accountability to taxpayers: journalists have let them know that they can find out information, and citizens have let them know that want it.

Aiken opens up financial docs

Aiken, SC was recently received public praise for posting financial information, including its check register, online.

The Augusta Chronicle reports:

Last year, [State General Comptroller Mr. Richard] Eckstrom had state spending information posted online and then launched a campaign to persuade local governments to post their expenditures on the Internet.

Aiken is among eight cities to have pushed through such an initiative. Mr. Eckstrom said he hopes more cities will realize it can be done and will follow the examples set by these eight.

Some transparency advocates used the event to push transparency for state legislature roll-call votes.

SC Opening Medicaid Payments to Taxpayers

During most state’s budgeting time, politicians, good government organizations, the press, and interest groups often toss around huge numbers regarding the ever-increasing costs of health care services. Most of the time, taxpayers have no idea where these numbers come from, who these health care providers are, and how much each is actually paid for their services.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is attempting to make that data accessible to the public through a transparency initiative that includes placing state Medicaid payments online.

GreenvilleOnline.com reports:

The move by DHHS, which administers the $5.4 billion Medicaid program, is part of an initiative by Gov. Mark Sanford to improve government transparency. It also will help DHHS locate “unusual billing patterns.”

Another site inaugurated this year lets taxpayers see administrative expenditures.
Aside from nursing homes and doctors, the site also provides information about dentists, hospitals and any of the other nearly 30,000 health care providers in South Carolina who participate in the Medicaid program. It includes their reimbursements as well as the number of patients they saw. More than 800,000 South Carolinians receive Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled.

The database can be viewed here, through the SC DHHS website.

Gov. Sanford, a potential VP candidate for John McCain, is on the right track on this issue.