Illinois County Auditor Launches Promising Transparency in Gov’t Effort

January 14, 2009 | Filed Under Budget, Conservatives, Economy/Finances, GOP, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, State Government, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

OK, we all know how corrupt and venal the various governments in Illinois are, right? Well, let’s talk about some good news in the Land of Lincoln for a change.

Republican Bob Grogan, County Auditor of DuPage County, Illinois (The populous county just to the west of Chicago’s Cook County), has launched an impressive transparency in government effort on the county website. Grogan had pledged recently to “provide the citizens and taxpayers of DuPage County with timely and pertinent information regarding the operations of DuPage County Government” and it looks like he is making good on his promise.

Only one month after starting his new, elected position, Grogan has launched a section of the website where county expenditure reports can be viewed by anyone. The reports are broken down in several ways; by department, vendor or individual project. Each report has a search feature and Grogan’s office will be updating the reports monthly.

Grogan’s is the first government office in the State of Illinois to launch such an on-line government transparency project and, here is the amazing part: he did it without spending a penny beyond the budget of his office. No massive funding, no outside vendors charging obscene fees were required. Grogan did it in a matter of months and within his established and approved budget.

Amazing, is it not?

Not only will this website where DuPage citizens can see what their county government is spending its budget upon facilitate a more transparent and legitimate government, but Grogan thinks it will actually save money.

In addition to the openness the reports provide to taxpayers, Grogan said he believes it will cut back on Freedom of Information Act requests and save his office time dealing with those questions.

That is an interesting hidden benefit. FOIA requests certainly take time to fulfill and they cost government fistfulls of cash to pay for computer time and in hours spent by employees filling the requests. If this project cuts out some of that annoying (though certainly necessary) FOIA request work, well that would be a hidden benefit. You won’t need to FOIA spending reports when you can just flip on your computer and see all you want. Not to mention that those interested in these sorts of reports won’t have the frustration of the often time months long process to fulfill an FOIA request.

At this point Republican Bob Grogan’s effort is a model for counties all across the country. Let’s hope the rest are paying attention.

And can I point out again that this is an effort led by a Republican? Just wondering if you are paying attention Governor Blagojevich?

____________
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Bookmark this story to your favorite service: