The Haywood County Commissioners suspended payments to the fairgrounds as a budget cutting measure last year. Now, the fairgrounds doesn’t have enough money to pay off its loans. The commissioners didn’t think they could afford to take another $40,000 out of their budget to help. However, they think the federal government can find enough money [...]
Asheville City Council will be considering giving gay domestic partners of city workers benefits. It is argued that men and women living together, but not married, do not deserve the domestic partner benefits because they can get married.
Smart Growth guru Richard Florida has argued that gays bring wealth and energy to communities. It is [...]
Transit system impact Asheville's transit system has the smallest impact on regional travel, according to a report by Dr. David Hartgen of UNCC.
Asheville congestion Future road congestion could threaten North Carolina’s economy, but Asheville is better prepared for congestion than most other N.C. cities.
Shuler and amnesty U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., and several Republican members of Congress try get Senate to resist attempts to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Rain threatens Maggie Valley mudslide MAGGIE VALLEY — It could be weeks before Maggie Valley residents evacuated from their houses after a massive mudslide Friday can return home, particularly since rain forecasted for this week could bring more earth sliding down the mountain. Emergency officials on ATVs escorted dozens of people to their houses along steeply winding Rich Cove Road on Saturday and Sunday to gather personal belongings.
Restrictions placed on ‘Road to Nowhere’ money BRYSON CITY — The down payment on a North Shore Road cash settlement will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for Swain County in the next year, but don’t expect a spending spree by the county. The principal from the $52 million settlement in the county’s decades-long dispute over the road, often called the “road to nowhere,” cannot be spent and will be placed into a trust fund managed by the state treasurer.
Swain gets $53 million in North Shore Road deal BRYSON CITY — The long road to legal settlement is coming to an end. Swain County leaders are on the verge of signing an agreement that would end the decadeslong dispute over the proposed North Shore Road through Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The federal government would pay the county $52 million over 10 years in the deal. Swain County commissioners will meet Friday to consider a plan that calls for the county to receive $12.8 million in settlement money this year.
Biltmore Lake annexation case ruling awaited ASHEVILLE — Both sides in the legal battle over Asheville’s annexation of the Biltmore Lake community made their final pitches to a judge Thursday as an eight-day trial drew to a close. Superior Court Judge James Baker must review documents numbering in the thousands of pages along with 85 pages of notes he said he took before a ruling is issued. City Attorney Bob Oast told Baker the city carefully followed laws enacted by state legislators authorizing municipalities to extend their boundaries to take in urbanized areas.
Trust But Verify: Open government is better government Executive Summary
Governments have been seeking ways to adopt or advertise their efforts at open government, sunshine, and transparency. Recent history is rife, however, with examples of how they have failed – such as Gov. Mike Easley’s financial dealings and the hole in the state health plan.
Open government helps build trust with taxpayers. Tools that improve openness with taxpayers have also helped government officials and managers better use their resources. Some state and local governments found ways to save money through improved transparency.
Financial transparency is an important step toward open government. Online budgets, contracts, salaries, and check registers make information more accessible. Corporate financial statements provide a model in clarity and accessibility. Too many government documents are not searchable in any way. When tied to outcome measures such as test scores in education, this greater accessibility can provide better insight about which government programs work and which ones do not.
Process transparency opens the closed doors elected officials try to hide behind when drafting laws. Putting bills online 72 hours before debate and voting begin, instead of in the middle of the night the day of a vote, would leave fewer surprises in legislation. Five-year fiscal projections for state and local budgets would also make clear the impacts of program changes over time, not just for the year or two a budget is in effect. Governments should also take further steps to publicize their meetings beforehand, record their proceedings, and make minutes or archived recordings available online.
Regulatory transparency means making the proceedings of non-elected bodies as open as those of the legislature, county commissions, and town councils. Proposed regulations should be easier to find and understand for those with an interest. The state auditor or an independent body should perform any audits or performance reviews. Reviews should cover not just how well an agency or program accomplishes its mission, but also whether the mission is appropriate for government.
Why Transparency Matters
Open government is needed for a healthy democracy. Yet much of how government operates is unknown. Carolina Journal first reported on Gov. Easley’s financial dealings in 2006, but it took until Bev Perdue took office and opened state police records for details to emerge.
The state spent as much as $226 million in excess cost for mental health services over three years. It took months for the costs to become large enough to gain attention and the full extent of the problem was not realized until the legislature’s Program Evaluation Division presented its findings in July 2009. The $250 million hole for 2009 in the state health plan also caught legislators by surprise.
Open government builds trust and improves government operations. It can even save money, as witnessed in Texas, where the state comptroller found $73,000 dollars in savings just through cutting the number of contracts for toner cartridges.
There are many facets of open government. The John Locke Foundation created the web site NCTransparency.com to improve online fiscal transparency, and the response from local governments has been very promising. The Greensboro News & Record complained that Guilford County commissioners work behind closed doors too much. Guilford is not alone. Few governments broadcast their meetings online or on television. Fewer still post proposed ordinances, rule changes, or even agendas online in advance of their meetings. Open contracting with competitive bidding is another essential element of open government.
Making information accessible is about more than making it available. Citizens need to be able to understand it. Elected and unelected officials need to change their approach to information. It is not simply about responding to citizen requests for information. The problem is that government documents are often difficult to understand even for those who use them on a daily basis. Is it any wonder that few citizens ask for budget information when that information comes in a form that is almost unintelligible?
Asheville, for example, has its budget available in twelve sections plus a glossary. Wake County Commissioner Stan Norwalk voted against putting information online because he worried about both the cost of putting data online and the effect on county employees who would “be bombarded with so many requests for information … that they will spend too much time dealing with frivolous inquiries.”
The answer, however, is neither to avoid making the information available nor just to put it online in any format. The answer is to present the information online in a way that can be easily understood.
The remainder of this paper will examine the three aspects of open government – fiscal transparency, process transparency, and regulatory transparency. Each section will provide examples of what transparency means in that area, steps governments are taking to become more transparent, and opportunities to improve transparency.
Why Transparency? Creating trust in government Open government is just as important in a modern republic as it was two centuries ago. Larger bureaucratic states threatened to overwhelm the ability of citizens and their representatives to keep track of government. Revelations of corrupt government officials, fraud in various programs, subsidies to chosen groups or companies, and laws written by lobbyists still surface. Fortunately, more tools are available every day to make more information available from more governments to more people.
The John Locke Foundation is taking steps to help governments become more open. Our NCTransparency.com site helps taxpayers find government information online and gives grades for a quick check of how much is available for a state agency, local government, or school district. Our latest policy report on transparency provides three areas for improved transparency and some examples of what is already available.
This guide has four sections:
How to think about transparency
How to increase financial transparency
How to expand transparency to the process of governing
Crucial Questions: A Checklist for School Board Candidates and Citizens According to the North Carolina General Statutes, school boards have three broad functions: 1) to maintain general control and supervision of all matters pertaining to the public schools, 2) to enforce and execute the school law, and 3) to ensure that the administration of schools is efficiently and more economically accomplished.
Within the scope of these broad functions, state law outlines hundreds of guidelines, recommendations, and requirements related to the work of the state’s 115 school boards. Even seasoned school board members often find the work to be laborious and complex. Unfortunately, these challenges often discourage parental involvement, as well as deter competent members of the community from pursuing a seat on a local board of education.
To simplify the process of understanding the work of school boards, the John Locke Foundation has developed a checklist for school board candidates and citizens. Checklist items are not direct quotes of state statutes, although several include key language used in them. Instead, this checklist applies existing statutes to five fundamental principles about the work conducted by local boards of education.
School board members must adhere to the powers and duties granted to local boards of education by state and federal law.
School board members must ensure that the public school system spends as much of its taxpayer dollars as possible on classroom instruction.
School board members must ensure that the public school system minimizes wasteful bureaucratic and programmatic expenditures.
School board members must work to best meet the educational needs of children, families, and communities in which they live. To this end, school board members should collaborate with charter, private, and home schools, as well as post-secondary institutions in their jurisdiction. Public school systems exist for the benefit of families; families do not exist for the benefit of school systems.
School board members must ensure that the school system is fully transparent. The school board must guarantee that the public has easily accessible, searchable, and timely information about all aspects of the operation of the school system, except those subject to confidentiality statutes.
Each question on the checklist is followed by one or more references to the applicable statute. The appendix provides a list of education resources from the John Locke Foundation Research Division.
