The unions in question are the Firefighters Local 558 and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 100. The entire negotiation process seemed a potentially volatile situation that somehow remained civil and efficient.

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I have had jobs where I have to report my hours, and am familiar with time sheets. They are certainly annoying, but I never lamented it too much. I always felt that my employers had a right to hold me accountable.

Turns out there’s a version of time sheets for governors. And in , there’s also an equivalent to the employee who doesn’t fill out his time card, or who doesn’t work. It’s hard to tell.

schedule for the first six months of 2010 showed an , according to the Texas Tribune. And 38 of his weekdays had “no state scheduled events.” Perry responded that he simply doesn’t write down much of his work for the state.

This is certainly not the norm. obtained detailed schedules kept by his fellow big-state governors:

Perry’s counterparts in California, New York and Florida do write down what they do. New York Gov. David Paterson’s schedule goes so far as to include drive times between events. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lists “cigar time” on his schedule. And they make their schedules readily available to the public. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist puts his schedule online every day.

Perry in all likelihood just isn’t reporting his schedule. Perry’s schedule makes no mention of a series of conference calls that Gulf Coast governors held regarding the BP oil spill. On one of the days on which log shows a phone call with Perry, Perry’s schedule reads “no state scheduled events.”

“Many times the governor was on [the call], [and] many times his staff was on,” says Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman. “If the governor didn’t call in, it’s not necessarily on his schedule.”

The article goes on to compare the approach of all of the governors examined to reporting their work, and to how this affects their approach to their jobs. It also focuses on other aspects of Perry’s transparency record, and notes that Perry’s office deletes official e-mails every seven days.

The practical consequences of transparency are prevention and weeding out of fraud and corruption. But on another, more personal level, open government and instill trust in our elected officials. Perry may not be up to anything fishy, but it wouldn’t hurt him to share more information with Texans about his professional activities.

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The , a taxpayer-funded lobbying organization, recently released a resource guide of governments using technology to increase government transparency.

are funded by public dollars. Officials or local governments will use tax funds to pay for dues to membership to these organizations, which then lobby for appropriations or legislation. Often, these activities go undisclosed to constituents.

The National League of cities (NLC) highlighted the effort of six cities in in their report. is one of the cities profiled. The city has a tool called “.” This is an excellent tool.

The site has six easy to understand options. These are:
*Where the City Gets its Money
*How the City Spends Your Money
*Louisville Checkbook, which allows you to search expenditures by agency and vendor
*City Employees Salaries (a tool could have used)
*Stimulus Funding for Louisville
*Questions & Answers, a frequently asked questions and context section.

Louisville not only discloses key information to taxpayers on its site, but it does it in a visually-appealing way. The website looks modern and simple. But it’s not just appealing in a superficial manner: the layout of the site contributes to how it is. It takes more than design to make a website usable, it takes thought. The site is incredibly intuitive and straightforward.

This is important. A government that discloses information in a matter that isn’t usable by its citizens may as well not disclose anything; in the end, no one is using or understanding the information. The same goes for governments that disclose information without context. Even something as simple as meeting minutes can seem abstruse for a person not used to reading information in that format or unfamiliar with certain jargon. I’ve often received information I’ve specifically asked for through requests and had no idea how to approach the list of vendors and purchase orders. Easy-to-understand information is invaluable.

One thing we’ve been working on at Sunshine Review is getting information about organizations like the National League of Cities. Part of what we consider on our is whether a local government discloses its lobbyists and membership in lobbying organizations. Most don’t. Citizens have a right to know whether their taxes are being directly used to lobby for issues. Either way, we should start demanding this level of disclosure from our governments.

So kudos to the National League of City for promoting innovation in transparency. Louisville is proof that it doesn’t take extreme measures to provide information to citizens. And here’s hoping the National League of Cities may take its focus on transparency as inspiration to more about its functions.

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Andrea Di Maio is an analyst at (and VP of) Gartner Research, where he focuses on e-government strategies. Today, an essay from .

One Di Maio appreciates in the essay is its acknowledgment that feedback of all sorts tends to be negative. You don’t call a representative, for example, to tell them that they’re doing a great job. Typically, you call a representative when you’re angry. When they’ve done something wrong. Sunshine Review does recognize this, however, and in an effort to acknowledge the positive efforts governments make in being transparent, we give to governments that get an A, A-, or B grade on our . Good achievements deserves just as much, if not more, acknowledgment than shortcomings.

Still, there’s one part of Di Maio’s assessment that is slightly off-mark. Noting that government is the most transparent of all of society’s institutions, he quotes the conclusion of the essay, saying that most people would agree:

“The current sophisticated movement for open government should expand its agenda and become a movement to Open Society”

It is true that most people would agree with this statement. Transparency, which has the curative effects on government of weeding out corruption, exposing fraud and waste, and instituting trust in constituents, should have the same effect on other spheres. As we often note, it’s not just citizens that benefit from this, but governments themselves. An inefficient government is no good to anyone. So, again, private companies, for example, can benefit from transparency as much as their customers can. This is probably true even on an individual level: my friends and I would both benefit from me being more open and honest about my actions and motivations.

But this is all beside the point of government transparency. We don’t demand that governments to us solely because of consequential reasons. We demand it because it is our right. This isn’t a disagreement with Di Maio, but rather a clarification. Transparency is great in every sphere, but while it’s voluntary or in the hands of customers to demand it in most, in government, it’s the ultimate standard. Take for example the recent where it was discovered that public officials of the town of 40,000 were . The outrage wasn’t simply about a misuse of funds. It was about breaking the . If, for example, you buy a product and later find out it cost much less to produce, there is maybe annoyance. But not a feeling of betrayal.

Governments need to respond to citizens in a way that private entities don’t. Perhaps citizens have high expectations of their governments that contribute to them focusing only on the negative. But being held to high standards is nothing to complain about. Transparency everywhere is a noble goal. But let’s start with transparency in government.

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