Sunshine Review has released a paper about taxpayer-funded lobbying in Illinois, reporting information about lobbying contracts and membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Taxpayer-funded lobbying associations are groups funded at least in part by public dollars that lobby for the collective interests of government bodies.

The paper reports 31 lobbyists represent the counties, and the counties hold at least 69 memberships to taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. The 10 most populous counties in Illinois alone spent $6.2 million dollars between 2005 and 2010 on lobbying.

Few citizens know tax dollars are spent to hire lobbyists. Without affirmative disclosure laws, citizens and media rarely see any information about taxpayer-funded lobbying and only through Freedom of Information Act requests can someone get this information from the government. More government transparency is surely needed in this area.

For more findings from Sunshine Review, click here.

Does a casino, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool sound like recreation or entertainment to you?

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member on the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, has sent a letter to Earl Devaney, Chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, “regarding stimulus funding being steered for projects that appear to violate the explicit prohibitions of the Recovery Act.”

Part of Issa’s letter reads:

“Despite the clear language of the Recovery Act and the subsequent effort by the White House to stress the importance of avoiding the use of stimulus funds for prohibited projects, taxpayer dollars were directed to entities legally barred from receiving them. In fact, stimulus money appears to have flowed to each and every type of project prohibited by Section 1604 of the AARA.”

· Casino: In February 2009, AARA funds were provided to students “at Fortune Bay Resort & Casino to get hands on experience in various departments within the resort and casino at our Career Expo Day.”

· Aquarium: In July 2009, AARA funds were awarded to Northwestern University for scientific research on fish. Part of the funding was used for “novel outreach projects (that) will expose the broader public to the results of research, including an art installation concerning the electric fields emitted by these fish and proposed enhancements to the electric fish displays of the Shedd Aquarium.”

· Zoo: In September of 2009, $25 million in ARRA funds were awarded to the Smithsonian for projects including the “completion of various projects at the National Zoo.”

· Golf Course: AARA funds were awarded to the Forest Hills Golf Course through a U.S. Department of Education grant to the Oregon Department of Education. The award funds a program that allows students in Oregon’s Forest Grove school district to use Forest Hills to learn to golf as part of the physical education curriculum.

· Swimming Pool: In July 2009, AARA funds were awarded to Northwestern University to provide “salary an wage compensation for individuals directly involved in AARA-funded projects” including “Pool Lifeguard.”

Issa also notes “impudent projects” such as spending stimulus money on a “waterpark, a bowling alley, a keg, beer and cigarette mart, a pet hotel, and a fraternity and sorority event.”

This is putting America to work?

Read more here.

In case you missed it, LA Times reporters Jason Felch, Jason Song and Doug Smith used California’s public records law to obtain seven years of math and English test scores from the Los Angeles Unified School District. They asked Richard Buddin, a well-respected analyst at the RAND Corporation, to run the numbers and estimate teacher effectiveness — just as many states around the country are considering, and in a few cases starting to do.

The story was an eye-opener. The Times didn’t just present the results; it named names. Much of this sort of data never sees the light of day. What’s more, according to the story: “The district has had the ability to analyze the differences among teachers for years but opted not to do so, in large part because of anticipated union resistance.”

The story has created an interesting response, from teachers, unions, education scholars and more. See here for some reactions and the full story, including remarks from Jay P. Greene, 21st Century Chair in Education Reform at the University of Arkansas:

“It’s no longer possible to hide the fact that there are some awful teachers who continue receiving paychecks and depriving kids of an education,” he wrote. “School officials have had these data for years and never used them, never tried to identify who were the best and worst teachers, and never tried to remove bad teachers from the profession. It took a newspaper and a big [freedom of information] request.”

Transparency is a great tool for measuring what government programs, or in this case, which teachers, are performing well or poorly. Increased transparency can mean increased government accountability, but only if government receives continued pressure from the public and media and fully utilizes this tool.

For the full story on the LA Times piece, click here.

Among an audit’s 68 findings were questions about whether youths who were paid more than $1 million were even qualified to be in the program, why $31,000 in pension payments were made for temporary summer youth workers and why a payroll company was given $12,000 to administer wage payments of $38,000 for one pay period.

“During this economic crisis, we have to make sure that every single dollar available to help put people back to work is used efficiently, effectively and appropriately,” Warren Ribley, director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said in a June statement to county commissioners.

The agency’s takeover recommendation comes five years after the state labeled the county program as “high risk” when a top official was under investigation for stealing money.

“Anytime there’s more scrutiny and more eyes watching taxpayer dollars, it’s a good thing,” said Commissioner Timothy Schneider, R- Streamwood, in response to the state’s actions. “To have to return money year after year to the state for mismanagement or misused funds is a disgrace.”

Accountability and transparency are vitally important in developing better government and strengthening public trust. To see how the state government is spending your tax dollars, explore our transparency website, IllinoisOpenGov.org, which features state salary, pension, and expenditure information. You can also find out which state officials are dedicated to transparency and accountability by checking out our Transparency Pledge page.

Our IllinoisOpenGov.org website distinguishes between “Registered Nurse I” and “Registered Nurse II.” According to the Illinois Department of Central Management Services website, those working under the title Registered Nurse I are “responsible for assigned nursing care activities in a patient, residential or health care unit, utilizing professional training and experience in the field of nursing” while a Registered Nurse II “utilizes professional training and expertise in the field of nursing to assure that other personnel assigned to patient residential or health care functions correctly carry out assigned duties.”

To find this information on our IllinoisOpenGov.org website, click on “Payroll” and search “Registered Nurse I” and “Registered Nurse II” in the “Position” field.

To find this information on our IllinoisOpenGov.org website, go to “Checks to Businesses and People” and search “Cincinnati” in the “City” field.

Stroger’s staff has lowered minimum job qualifications, pretended not to know job applicants when they did, tried to invoke emergency hiring powers and fed job test answers to applicants with political sponsors.

“The goal is to hire certain people, and they will take whatever steps are needed to get to that goals,” monitor Mary Robinson said in an interview. That attitude has worsened in some quarters since Stroger finished last in a four-way Democratic primary in February, even as improvements were made in other areas, she said.

Eugene Mullins, Stroger’s spokesman, responded to the charges saying all of the firings were from failure to live up to expectations and all those hired were qualified for the work they were doing. One person specifically mentioned in the report was Carla Oglesby, Stroger’s former campaign spokeswoman. Oglesby was given a $120,000-a-year chief of staff post but was suspended when it was discovered that she authorized a $25,000 contract to her own public relations firm. “But Stroger quickly put her back on the payroll, even as an inspector general’s investigation into contracts she authorized continues.”

The findings in this report show what transparency can reveal when it comes to corrupt and inefficient hiring. Unfortunately, it took a court-ordered FBI probe for this information to become public. Instead, Cook County should aim to be transparent so such hiring and firing are never even considered.

To read the whole article, click here.

Districts used taxpayer dollars to pay $100,000 salaries even as they struggled with red ink. A third of districts with unusually high concentrations of teachers making six figure – at least 10 percent of teachers – posted operating deficits in 2008-2009, according to state financial data.

Some feel that the teachers unions should compromise in order “to help contain spending in a a bad economy.” However, many teachers feel that the salaries are more than justified:

Teachers used to be considered a “cheap commodity,” said Thomas Ludovice, a biology and chemistry teacher at Hinsdale Central High School and a local teachers union vice president. Decades ago, he recalls teachers being paid close to the poverty line and scrambling to work summer jobs to make ends meet.

…National Education Association Bill Raabe said more teachers should be making $100,000. “If we’re really going to attract people into the profession and do the kind of work we expect, we’re going to have to pay them.”

Jack Roeser of the Family Taxpayers Foundation disagrees. He says that given the amount of time teachers work during the year, teachers are overpaid. Tom Johnson, President of the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois, shares the same view: “Obviously, we want top-quality professionals teaching the students of future generations….but in these economically troubled times, how can you justify any kind of compensation adjustments going anywhere but downward?”

If school districts were transparent and posted salary information online, this news wouldn’t come as such a shock to many of the taxpayers on the hook for these salaries. Furthermore, it would allow for taxpayers in these communities to voice their opinions in the bargaining process of the salaries.

To read the whole article, click here.

Now, Texans can “search for information that matters to them, perform online transactions with 24/7 assistance, use an intuitive and effective search function, and access discussion forums designed to increase engagement between citizens and state government,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch.

The website (http://www.texas.gov) delivers over 1,000 services and offers a single, comprehensive online resource, making government “available to Texans anytime, anywhere.” In addition, the website comes at no additional cost to taxpayers! It’s entirely self-funded, and has “processed over 118 million financial transactions and collected over $13 billion on behalf of participating entities.”

For more, check out this link. Illinois would do well to take a look at what Texas is doing and learn from a state improving services to its citizens by advancing open government and pushing to improve the ways in which it delivers services at no cost to taxpayers.

The report also reveals Chicago’s sweeping disregard for the Freedom of Information Act:

The problem, it seems, is that public officials in Chicago act like it’s their money – and their government. Aside from relying on your money to fund them, you are incidental at best and a treacherous obstacle at worst.

The Beachwood provides a slew of examples highlighting the City of Chicago’s poor response, which you can find here.

Sound familiar?