Sunshine Week: An opportunity to advance the cause of open government

The Governor works for you. So does your local county administrator, your mayor, your legislator and the superintendent of your school district.

This means you have a right to know how each of them spend your tax dollars and how they arrive at decisions that affect you.

This week, March 15-21, is National Sunshine Week. Its purpose is to celebrate -- and raise awareness of -- laws that grant citizens access to public records.

Sunshine Week started in 2003. A group of newspaper editors sought a way to educate the public on Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, the advantages of open government and the dangers of government secrecy. It’s observed primarily by the media, which use state and federal FOI laws to gain access to public records.

Enacted in 1976, South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act requires meetings of public bodies (from school boards to the legislature) to be open to the public. The Act also requires for the agendas of planned meetings be to publicly posted at least 24 hours in advance. Most importantly, the Act guarantees citizens the right to inspect and copy government documents if they wish.

I’ve long believed that transparency is the backbone of good government. When government officials are required to operate in full view of the citizenry, they are usually more accountable. They tend to make decisions that are in the best interest of the people they represent.

Unfortunately, however, many of those important decisions are often made behind closed doors. Some men and women in positions of public trust act as if the “people’s business” is nobody’s business. I probably don’t have to tell you what it means when government feels free to make decisions in private, knowing what they discuss may never face the test of public scrutiny.

It was a year ago this week that my office unveiled South Carolina’s first spending transparency Web site for state government. Visitors to the site can view specific spending details for more than 80 state agencies. And in recent months my staff and I have devoted our efforts to persuading local governments also to begin posting their spending details on the Internet, so that taxpayers can see where their hard-earned tax dollars are going at the local as well as state level. This spending transparency initiative is among several key reforms underway that aim to shine a light on the inner workings of government.

Empowering citizens with access to details about how government operates won’t fix all our problems overnight, but it will go a long way toward improving the quality of governance and moving our state forward.

Even in the best of times, transparency is vital to good government. Given today’s economic crisis, with tax dollars scarce and the demands on them increased, full transparency is more important than ever.