Transparency Reforms

There are two basic ways to skin the cat of promoting greater government transparency through open records at the state and local level.

One way is to lobby your state legislature for a tougher open records law. If you're in a state that doesn't currently set a statutory time limit by which an agency must respond to an open records request, one example of a legislative reform is adding a statute that does set a time limit.

In May 2007, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association laid out a list of Six Minimum Requirements for legislative reform.

Another approach is to ask that government agencies automatically include basic information on their websites. One advantage of this approach is that you don't need to wait for your state legislature to reform its open records law. You can simply go ahead and ask your city, county, school district or state agency to start routinely posting much more information online. If they ignore you, you can approach your local elected officials and invite them to sign on to the move for greater government transparency by adjusting their vision of what can be shared on their website. (And if they ignore you, you still have the option of lobbying your state legislature to change its law.)

We call these reforms "internet-based transparency reforms" and that's what this section of our Wiki is about.

You can read about school district transparency internet-based reforms and ideas here and add your own.

Using city and county websites to promote transparency.

You can read a report on how accessible public employee salaries are in different states.


This proposal would work for any state or local government agency:

On April 29, 2007, the Shelby Watchdog blog included such a proposal by Joseph Saino:

OPEN RECORDS- The following should be put on the internet promptly. All RFPs (Request for Proposals), replies to RFPs, contracts, purchase orders, related correspondence and selection justification. All professional contract awards with related correspondence. All building projects, related contracts, purchase orders, change orders and correspondence e.g. the FedEx Arena and the Cannon Center and school projects. All salaries, benefits, pension details, land deals and minutes of meetings. All budgets, financial statements and audits. Only by making open records access easier, can we keep the sunshine on government practices which politicians like to conceal. The current no bid purchase orders given under the ACS contract shield is an example of gross abuse and lack of transparency in bidding and awarding contracts.

San Francisco Bay Guardian 2008 Annual FOI issue

My cover story here:

FOI: More sunshine -- easily and at no cost
Technology can allow the city to take a huge step forward in public access -- right now
(I examine storing most documents and email online by default and webcasting most meetings in city hall)

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