By Dennis Sullivan

Village government in Orland Park, Tinley Park and Homer Glen get high marks for transparency, according to a spokesman for the fiscally-conservative Illinois Policy Institute.

The institute examines and grades the websites of local villages, schools and other taxing districts on how clearly they present information about village board and committee meetings, project budgets and other public records, said Brian Costin, director of outreach for the institute, at a presentation on government transparency last week in Tinley Park.

Orland Park received an A+ and Tinley Park and Homer Glen each got a B+, while the Orland Fire Protection District and Will County were given an A, Costin said. Orland Township received an A- and Orland School District 135 a B+.

He and Adam Andrzejewski, a 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary candidate who cultivated support in the tea party movement, spoke about government transparency to a group of about 30 at the Tinley Park VFW Post 2791. The event was sponsored by the Illinois Patriot Alliance, a tea party group in the Orland Park, Tinley Park and Palos areas.

Both said that more tools are available for citizens of all political persuasions to keep an eye on government. For instance, Costin said, the institute helps local governments and other taxing districts make it easier for residents to access contact information for their elected leaders and administrative officials.

Getting information out to the public is essential to fighting the “crony capitalism, or just cronyism,” which has contributed to the state’s “horrible reputation” across the nation, Costin said.

“A lot of times things happen so far under the radar that if the citizens heard about it, they’d (government officials) do things differently,” Costin said.

Andrzejewski said his anti-tax advocacy group, For the Good of Illinois, uses a different approach to battle the “systemic culture of corruption throughout the state.”

For the Good of Illinois has established an online database, openthebooks.com, that provides information about local and state government employee salaries, payroll, and pensions, he said. Andrzejewski, a small businessman, said the Freedom of Information Act is an important tool for gathering information.

Other groups like the Better Government Association offer guidance on tracking government. The association hosts quarterly clinics on filing requests under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act free of charge, according to its website, http://www.bettergov.org. The clinics are operated in collaboration with Kirkland & Ellis LLP and the Center for Open Government at Chicago-Kent College of Law. It also provides an online database of public-sector employees’ pay.

Andrzejewski said monetary mishandling may occur in the form of political donations. School boards, he said, also routinely increase superintendent’s salaries in the 11th hour to provide larger state pensions.

Although Costin didn’t suggest an F grade automatically means corruption, he noted the policy institute gave an F to the city of Dixon because it didn’t provide adequate information on expenditures and payments, for example.

Now the city’s former comptroller and treasurer is accused of plundering $53 million. “Dixon lacked many of the transparency proposals we have in our 10-point checklist,” Costin said. “There was virtually no meeting information or contact information for officials. They had 16.90 percent out of a possible 100.”

“There is,” he added, “a great opportunity on the local level to work on transparency in government.”

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