Illinois ranks 31/50 during 2009 Sunshine Week
It’s Sunshine Week, and newspapers are collectively highlighting the level of transparency–or lack thereof–in states nationwide.
Here’s a brief run-down of Sunshine Week editorials from Illinois newspapers.
Pantagraph: Illinois behind the times in making info available online
[Quinn] not only wants state agencies to make it easier for the public to get public records, but he ordered agencies to report back to him by next month on what kinds of information can be posted online.
But putting public information on the Internet isn’t always embraced. A recent proposal to put state employee salaries on the Internet has met with resistance by state worker unions, who’ve said it’s an invasion of privacy.
It’s not clear whether Quinn’s February memorandum will result in salaries being put online, but it’s among three changes in government openness he began pushing for after taking office in January.
Southtown Star: Review of government Web site yields mixed results
Sunshine Week (www.sunshineweek.org) is about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.
Chicago Tribune: New Ill. governor promises government openness
Illinois has public records in 10 of the 20 online categories surveyed. But it doesn’t have a searchable statewide database of expenditures, the Illinois Department of Transportation doesn’t make contracts available on its Web site and hospital inspection reports aren’t available online, according to the survey.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.