The second occurred when the Senate failed to override Gov. Quinn’s changes to the Sunshine Commission Act (HB4836). Here’s a good recap on this from the State Journal Register’s Doug Finke:

* There was a bill introduced nearly a year ago that went by the name “The Sunshine Commission Act.”  Sunshine, transparency (and forensic audit for that matter) are words currently in vogue in state government. They impart a purity of purpose that lawmakers usually don’t achieve by, you know, just doing their jobs.

The bill came out of the House Republican caucus and had about three-dozen co-sponsors signed onto it.  It called for the four legislative leaders to appoint a panel consisting of four lawmakers and four members of the public. The panel was to “conduct a thorough review of the relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness of each state executive branch program.”  In other words, look at the programs run by state agencies under the governor and see if they work and should be continued.

Sounds good, right? You’d get sort of an outsider’s perspective on ways to fix government.  Lawmakers thought so, too.  The bill passed the House 114-0 and the Senate 54-0.  It was sent to Quinn.

Quinn decided to make it better, however.  Rather than sign the bill, he rewrote it to give himself four appointees on the panel. He also changed the qualifications needed by the public members selected to serve on the panel. He said the original version “represents only a limited number of corporate special interests. The people of our state deserve better.”

Maybe, but now the people will be getting nothing.

When the governor changes a bill like that, both the House and Senate either have to accept the changes or reject them. If both chambers don’t vote to do the same thing, the bill goes pffft.

The House voted to reject Quinn’s changes, believing it would be difficult to get an objective evaluation of the governor’s operations with the governor’s people on the panel. The Senate tried to do the same. But when the vote was taken, Republicans mostly voted to dump the Quinn changes (like the House did), and the Democrats mostly voted to keep them. Bottom line, the sunshine commission is dead for now.

Another valuable reminder that too much sunshine (in life or in government) can cause problems.

* While we’re on the subject, the best line during the sunshine bill debate came from Sen. DALE RIGHTER, R-Mattoon.

“We need a see-through government,” Righter said, urging his colleagues to save the bill by scrapping Quinn’s changes.

It’s a great line because, about 12 hours earlier, Righter voted with 47 other senators to shield the performance evaluations of public employees from the state’s open records laws.

Guess you want see-through government, but with certain parts blacked out for family viewing.

The votes on the performance evaluations bill had many scratching their heads. Only three senators, Murphy, Duffy and McCarter, voted no. Take a look at the voting roster and see for yourself.

The whole point of transparency in government is to provide a tool for citizens to hold their elected officials more accountable. Despite these setbacks, we are eager for next year and look forward to working towards bringing more transparency to Illinois. Be sure to keep an eye out, and if you want to get involved and help bring more transparency to your local or state government, check out our volunteer Liberty Leaders program and contact us!

According to the Little Black Pearl website, its mission “is to create opportunities for youth and adults to deepen their creative involvement through the arts, cultivate their entrepreneurial skills and use the arts as a means for economic empowerment and community transformation.”

The grant was part of the DCEO’s Grant Management Program, which provides grants “for specific purposes to bolster the State’s economy, promote a clean environment and improve the overall quality of life throughout the State of Illinois.”  How does an industrial art studio improve the overall quality of life in Illinois or bolster the state’s economy? This sounds like another example of poor spending of taxpayers’ money by the DCEO and highlights, again, why Illinois is 48^th in economic performance and 47^th in economic outlook compared to the other states.

To find this information on our IllinoisOpenGov.org website, go to “Checks to Businesses & People,” under the “Department” section search “Commerce and Economic Opportunity,” under the “Vendor” section search “Little Black Pearl Workshop.”

The website aims to provide citizens and elected officials with model legislation and tools to launch reforms and expand the amount of information available about government.

As Michael Barnhart of Sunshine Review explains, “State and local governments, and school districts, have an affirmative obligation to proactively share the information people need to hold officials accountable for how tax money is spent and how the people’s business is conducted. We must set the bar for state and local government transparency.”

Barnhart suggests state and local governments all need to meet a “sunshine standard” so there is a consistent pattern across the board for government to be defined as “transparent.” The standard includes:

1. Budgets for current and previous years, with a graph showing increases or decreases over time to help citizens evaluate and understand trends in local government spending, including spending for salaries. The checkbook register and credit card receipts should also be posted.
2. Open-meeting laws should be posted, along with notices about public meetings of the governing board, minutes of past meetings, and a schedule and agendas for future and past meetings.
3. Public officials should be listed online by name with contact information, e-mail addresses and the elected official’s voting record. The names of key administrators and their contact information, including e-mail addresses, also should be posted.
4. Building permits and zoning applications should be available for review and downloading. In addition, citizens should be able to submit and track applications online.
5. Audit information should be available for online inspection, including report results, audit schedules and performance audits of government programs.
6. Contract rules should be posted, along with bids and contracts for purchases over $10,000, as well as vendors’ campaign contributions to government contract decision makers.
7. Lobbying contributions to any publicly funded lobbying associations that contribute taxpayer money to other associations should be disclosed.
8. Public records should include the name of the person who is in charge of fulfilling open-records requests, along with contact information for that person.
9. Tax information should be comprehensibly posted in a central location, including and accounting for all state “fees” such as driver’s licenses, all tax documents for all elected officials and identified sources of revenue for each department and agency.

For more on this, read Barnhart’s take and be sure to visit http://sunshinestandard.org.

By law, TIFs are intended to promote economic development in blighted areas, and this is just another example of the widespread disregard of the law regarding TIF development. Can anyone call the Loop, the center of business in downtown Chicago, “blighted?” Not likely.

Why are taxpayers on the hook for subsidizing such developments, all under the guise of TIF? Cook County collected $875 million from taxpayers in TIF money in 2008. How much of this went to economic development in blighted areas?

Check out Cook County Clerk David Orr’s TIF reports, and you’ll see development after development in the least of blighted areas, like the Loop and Lincoln Park.

Taxpayers, do you live in a TIF district? Is it blighted? Take these questions to your elected officials and ask them why your property tax dollars are being funneled into a TIF instead of your schools, parks or libraries. Only when the public starts taking action on the TIF issue will any true reform occur.

According to the project description on the DCEO Grant Tracker website, “Performances relating to history in Springfield when Lincoln walked our streets will be brought to life with this grant.”  In the last three years the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition has received $871,000 in grants from the state.

Promoting historical landmarks and educating visitors on Abraham Lincoln’s life is certainly a noble project.  However, spending $79,000 to have actors dress up in 19th century costumes hardly seems like a priority, especially with the budget deficit next year.

To find this information on our IllinoisOpenGov.org website, go to “Checks to Businesses & People.” and under the “Department” section search Dept. of Commerce, under the “Vendor” section search Looking for Lincoln.

Check out some new spending data available on our spending transparency website, IllinoisOpenGov.org.

We have included school vendor information for you to check out! We’ll also be updating current information (Payroll, Checks to Businesses & People, Retiree Data) soon, so keep a eye out for that too.

To find this information on our IllinoisOpenGov.org website, go to “Checks to Businesses & People”  Under the “Department” section search Dept. of Commerce, under the “Vendor” section search Chicago Horticultural Society.

Check out a new paper on TIF, highlighting the need for more transparency, a stricter definition of “blight,” and more public control in the TIF process.

Building models is a wonderful hobby but may not be the best use of the taxpayer’s money.  I also have never heard of a “state-of-the-art” model.  Perhaps there have been major breakthroughs in model-building technology.  Want to see what the Institute thinks about the DCEO?  Check it out here.

To find this information on our IllinoisOpenGov.org website, go to “Checks to Businesses & People”.  Under the “Department” section search Dept. of Commerce, and under “Vendor” search Chicago Architecture.