Local Governments Receive Failing Grade in Transparency
Illinois Policy Institute's Brian Costin is quoted in a story on local transparency.
By Bridget Doyle
A number of suburban government agencies received failing grades from a conservative watchdog group that recently rated websites based on the kind of information available to the public.
The Downers Grove Park District received the highest rating with a grade of B in the transparency audit by the Illinois Policy Institute, a Chicago-based think tank that promotes free market principles. Clarendon Hills Park District ranked lowest, putting it among more than a dozen West suburban governments that received an F rating.
Many agencies received failing grades because of the same common areas — access to the salaries and benefits of elected officials and administration, contracts and lobbying information, said Brian Costin, director of outreach for the institute.
“Most of taxpayer money is spent on salaries and benefits, and it’s generally one of the least transparent overall,” Costin said. “We’re trying to make sure someone’s cousin isn’t on the payroll or salaries don’t get obscene. This is the key area we’re looking to government agencies for.”
Each grade is based on whether websites posted information about elected officials, staff, meetings, budgets, audits, spending, salaries, contracts, lobbying and taxes.
The villages of Willowbrook and Downers Grove both received C grades. The remaining 12 surveyed agencies joined Clarendon Hills Park District with an “F” grade. They are: Indian Prairie Library District, Village of Hinsdale, Village of Burr Ridge, Hinsdale High School District 86, Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills School District 181, Downers Grove Public Library, DuPage County Forest Preserve, Village of Clarendon Hills, Downers Grove Township, Hinsdale Public Library, Burr Ridge Park District and Clarendon Hills Public Library.
Clarendon Hills Park District’s rating of 6.9 out of 100 points put it at the bottom of the agencies reviewed this month. The most recent review was the second conducted by the think tank, which audited 16 agencies in the Downers Grove Township area in November. Agencies were offered ideas on how to improve before the final audit this month.
Brandi Beckley, public information supervisor for the Downers Grove Park District, said the park district’s score went from 28.4 to a final audit of 80 because they added a number of documents to its website.
“When we received the first audit, we were surprised because we felt like we had a sufficient amount of information on our website,” Beckley said. “But, we understand what the IPI is and what their role is, so we changed to meet their expectations of transparency. We added our own audits, budget reports and administrative-type information to our website along with information about our elected officials, public meetings and FOIA requests.”
Donald Scheltens, executive director of the Clarendon Hills Park District, said he believes the park district received a low score because its website is still mainly general information and recreational information.
“We thought our website was fine, but when you start comparing it to other sites, there’s some work we could do,” Scheltens said.
After receiving their most recent score, Scheltens said park district officials are getting together to discuss what they believe is necessary to put on the website.
“All of the information (IPI) is asking for is available at the park district office, but we’re going to hopefully start to put more information like meeting minutes and last year’s budget on our website,” Scheltens said.
Only two agencies of the nearly 85 the Illinois Policy Institute graded in the past year have come up with A grades.
Amy Pisciotto, information technology coordinator for the village of Hinsdale, had a hand in bringing up the village’s score, but said the still-failing grade doesn’t tell the whole story.
“We do post our salary ranges on a yearly basis, but (IPI) wants an individual breakdown, not a range,” Pisciotto said. “We also received a ‘0’ for lobbying, but there’s no lobbying or membership information out there. So, we received a ‘0’ even if it’s not applicable.”
In order to raise the village’s score, Pisciotto said she added the past five fiscal years’ budgets including individual expenditures, check registers and yearly expenditures.
For the future transparency audits, Pisciotto said she’s working to better scan village documents so they are more easily searchable by members of the community.
“We’re planning to make sure we have really good original copies of village documents to help them scan at a higher quality and have better text recognition, “ Pisciotto said. “By doing this, it should make it easier for the documents to be searchable.”
Costin said a main reason the organization audits surrounding agencies at the same time is to foster a little bit of grade envy.
“We’re trying to spark a little competition to encourage agencies to score better than their neighbors,” Costin said. “It’s all about improving access to citizens about how their tax dollars are being spent and how they can participate in the democratic process.”