S.C. town, county setting example others should follow

By Richard Eckstrom
S.C. Comptroller General


What do the town of Irmo and the county of Anderson have in common?

Both want taxpayers to see how their hard-earned dollars are being spent.

Anderson County and Irmo have recently begun posting their spending details on the Internet, empowering their constituents with click-of-a-mouse access to information about how public money is being used. In doing so, these two governments are demonstrating that they understand it’s not government’s money they’re spending -- it’s the citizens’ money. And those citizens deserve nothing less than full spending transparency.

Anderson County and Irmo are also sending an important message: Putting spending details on the Internet each month is neither difficult nor expensive. And the benefits of full transparency are certainly worth the minimal effort involved.

My staff and I have been working to persuade local governments to post their checkbook registers on the Web each month. We’ve been getting in to work a little earlier in the mornings and working a little later in the evenings so that, a couple of times a week, we can travel to meet with local governments across the state. We’ve met with towns, counties and school systems from the Upstate to the coast -- in Horry, Greenville, Spartanburg, Lexington, Richland, Charleston, Berkeley and York counties. And we’ve been encouraged by responses we’re receiving. Several have signaled to me they intend to consider putting their checkbook registers online soon.

In my meetings with local governments, the first argument I inevitably hear is that anyone already has access to spending detail because they can request and obtain it under the state’s Freedom of Information Act. Maybe so, but I would argue that citizens shouldn’t have to make slow and cumbersome Freedom of Information Act requests -- not in the convenient Internet age in which we live.

To make complete spending transparency as simple as possible, my office is offering to host the information on our own Web servers. Local governments can now simply email us a computer file containing their data, and we’ll do the rest.

The town of Irmo readily took us up on the offer. Its spending details are available on my office’s Web site, http://www.cg.sc.gov/ (follow link on left side of screen). Anderson County, on the other hand, has chosen to put its spending information on its own site, http://www.andersoncountysc.org/.

Anderson County and Irmo leaders are to be commended. By voluntarily putting their spending details online, they’re helping usher in a new era of transparency in South Carolina. Other local governments should follow their example. And citizens elsewhere should contact their own local elected officials and urge them to put their checkbook registers on the Internet.

Spending transparency isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s not a conservative or liberal issue. It’s simply good government. It’s about empowering taxpayers with information about how their money is spent. That’s a goal everyone should embrace.