Urge local governments to put spending online

Increased transparency needed to restore faith in government

Providing increased government transparency -- giving people more and better information on how government spends our money and how elected officials make decisions that affect all of us -- is a cause dear to my heart.

Too many decisions are made behind closed doors, diluting accountability of our elected officials and eroding public confidence in government itself. When elected officials make decisions in secret and without a record of their votes, they sometimes pass things they never would approve in full view of the public.

Earlier this year, I worked with Governor Sanford to create an easy-to-use spending transparency Web site. It contains detailed spending information for more than 80 state agencies, giving the public more access than ever to information about how state government spends their hard-earned tax dollars.

This Web site, which is available through my office’s site (http://www.cg.sc.gov/), is serving as a national model for other states attempting their own transparency initiatives. Several states have contacted me hoping to duplicate our open-government ideas.

Today, the Comptroller General's Office is working to help bring increased transparency to local governments -- towns, cities, counties, special purpose districts, and school districts. We’re reaching out to work with local governments to put their spending data online, even offering to host the information on our own Web site.

Any transparency movement, however, is likely to meet resistance from those who prefer that the public not know exactly how their money is spent and who see increased transparency as an intrusion on their authority and into their exclusive domain. Excuses vary: Some say it’s too costly to put the information online. Others say there’s not enough public interest. Still others question the motives of any citizen interested in looking at spending by local governments. I disagree with all these weak arguments. They’re nonsense!

Government absolutely needs to provide this information with no excuses. Call it an on-line check register. People want and deserve to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent, and people can be trusted with this information. In this information age, it’s easy and inexpensive to do.

It’s unbelievable that anyone could oppose this kind of initiative with a straight face or a clear conscience. But this has to be done. I hope that local governments all over South Carolina will do so voluntarily. If they refuse, I’ll try again this year to get support from the Legislature to compel local governments to make this useful information conveniently available to the public at no cost. What could be more convenient to the public than providing this information on the Internet?

But before asking the Legislature to pass another law, I’m turning to the public for help. I’m asking people to make their voices loudly heard and contact officials of their own town or city, their county, and their school district. People need to insist to them that local governments post their spending on-line. If local officials haven’t yet heard about my offer to put their spending detail in one centralized location on my office’s Web site, tell them about it.

I’ll soon be holding workshops around the state to help any local governments interested in working with me on this. Look up phone numbers. Call your mayor, your representatives on City and County Council, and your school board representatives. Tell them that, as a voter, you feel transparency is the best policy. While it won’t cure all that ails our state, equipping citizens with the knowledge gained by better access to how their money is spent would hold our elected officials more accountable and would better safeguard the public trust.

In other words, this is a common sense matter of good government.