Transparency Victory in Quincy, Posts Employee Contracts
On Monday, the council agreed to publish on the city
by Brian Costin
Here’s some great news from the Quincy City Council. On Monday, the council agreed to publish on the city’s website all collective bargaining agreements with unions representing city employees. The transparency measure motion was brought up by Alderman Dan Brink at the meeting. Full story from the Quincy Herald-Whig.
Previously, Quincy Alderman Kyle Moore approached the Illinois Policy Institute for help in improving transparency and asking for examples of other municipal governments in Illinois who were posting union/personnel contracts online. We gave him two examples of municipalities who have enacted transparency best practices for employee contracts.
Schaumburg, IL
Hoffman Estates, IL: Fire (PDF), Police (PDF), Public Works (PDF)
After the legislative victory Alderman Moore told us, “The measure to posts labor contracts online is an important step for Quincy, because over ¾ of the $30 million city budget is spent on labor (salaries and fringe benefits). ”
But Alderman Moore also believes Quincy needs to go further. Quincy has not committed to posting old contracts and Human Resources Director Doug Olson said once a given contract has expired; the city would “need to remove it from the website as soon as possible.”
Alderman Moore disagreed and wrote to us saying, “Giving citizens the ability to see our current contracts online gives our citizens a current view of our labor situation, but it doesn’t let them know how we got here. Giving them easy access to previous contracts online will help identify changes to contracts that have either been beneficial to the city or cost us more money than what we had planned for. Last year we created a 360 degree online budgetary process which has led to more citizen involvement in the city. I believe giving citizens easy access to previous and current labor contracts will help us identify areas where we can save money in the future.”
The Illinois Policy Institute recommends at least a 5-year record of public employee contracts in our 10-Point Transparency Checklist, if not longer.
We agree with Alderman Moore and congratulate all of Quincy on making the decision to improve transparency for their citizens, and urge them to continue their progress.