Open Illinois.org

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, HERE’S WHAT WE DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S OPEN ILLINOIS WEEK CONFERENCE CALL.

Kate Campaigne (kcampaigne@illinoispolicyinstitute.org) and I (Richard Lorenc- richard@illinoispolicyinstitute.org) ran today’s Open Illinois Week call from the Institute. Here is a brief summary of what we discussed. I’ve put e-mail addresses next to people’s names so you can contact them with questions or suggestions.

Open Illinois Week (Feb. 23-27) is a chance for you to approach or otherwise contact your county officials to ask them to become transparent by putting their official county check register online. Liberty Leader participants will use the Transparency Pledge as a tool to commit officials to a policy of transparency.

You can download a form letter from Sunshine Review.org today in case you prefer to send your officials the pledge by mail. Remember to follow up!

Once you’ve received responses from your officials, survey your county’s website according to the Ten Points criteria on Sunshine Review.org. Then post your findings on the website. Here’s an instructional video.

Here’s the call recap:

Kristin McMurray from Sam Adams Alliance, Editor of Sunshine Review.org (kristinpedia@sunshinereview.org)

• SunshineReview.org is a wiki-based government transparency and accountability site–it is the user-generated encyclopedia of government transparency
• Kristin is interested in the response you get when you ask county officials to be transparent
• Sunshine Review.org evaluates every county (in Illinois and across the country) according to a ten-point checklist that you to confirm and add to:

Liberty Leader Adam Andrzejewski from FortheGoodofIllinois.org (adam@forthegoodofillinois.org)

• Adam and his group have made nearly $3 billion in taxpayer expenditures transparent since beginning last year–that’s almost 50 school districts!
• Financial transparency gives taxpayers the ability to trust the government organization, and empowers people to review books and hold elected officials accountable.
• You should approach officials “on their terms,” Most officials haven’t even thought about government transparency and want to do the right thing.

Bob Grogan – DuPage County Auditor (auditor@dupageco.org)

• Achieving transparency for DuPage County was easy–no cost, no time, minimal manpower.
• Officials need to do due-diligence prior to posting data, but it’s extremely easy.
• If your county doesn’t have the means to place financial information online, they have big problems–every county does its books electronically.
• Bob welcomes calls from others to talk about his experience and offer help.

Questions & Answers

• Who maintains checkbooks if there is not a county auditor (most counties don’t have auditors)? Talk to Treasurer and/or Finance Department

• What should be the selling points? No downside to transparency; the press love it, people love it; it’s positive and proactive; it allows the public to supplement budget and give government tips for questionable spending; the government already produces these reports, so placing them online is easy and not time-consuming.

• What do people need to do to get set-up on Sunshine Review? Type “Open Illinois” in Search Bar. You need to sign-up for log-in and ability to edit pages.

• Is there anyone in Cook County that will embrace this? Bob Grogan says, “Tony Peraica is pushing a resolution for transparency.”

• How should I approach an official? Appeal to their concerns, i.e. Accountability to Taxpayers. Role-play how a discussion between you and an official might go. Express all of the selling points.

• Are there any other resources I should use? Here is a Daily Herald article that praises Bob Grogan’s work for transparency. Print a copy of it out and include it with your pledge and letter.

Visit http://www.openillinois.org for more resources.

DON’T FORGET TO SIGN UP TO PARTICIPATE (FEB. 23-27) IN YOUR COUNTY:

Please send this information to your friends and get them involved.

Let’s have a great showing next week!

-Richard Lorenc
Illinois Policy Institute
richard@illinoispolicyinstitute.org
312-346-5700 x205