Open Illinois.org

• Transparency requires listing all government expenditures online in an easily searchable database, providing the details of every tax dollar spent. Ideal transparency websites provide a complete, itemized, and clear description of all expenditures, including but not limited to all contracts, vendors, and grants. All expenditures would have a detailed account of the payment’s purpose and who authorized the payment.

• Transparency fosters accountability in government.

• Increased public access to and understanding of government spending instills greater public confidence in elected officials.

• Transparency brings clarity and sunshine to the characteristically opaque process of government spending.

• Transparency serves as an x-ray machine, allowing people to look into the details of the budget books and understand where their tax dollars go – and to whom.

• Transparency implementation costs at the state level have varied, with most programs having minimal to low fiscal impact. The benefits of transparency quickly make the cost worthwhile, and in the Internet age, there is no excuse to not post expenditures and financial data online.

• AK, AZ, GA, KS, LA, MD, MS, NV, UT and WA passed state transparency legislation/gubernatorial action in 2008. HI, KS, MN, OK, and TX passed state transparency legislation in 2007. State executive orders were passed in FL, MO, SC, and TX in 2007.

• Transparency alleviates the paper-heavy, inefficient FOIA process, eliminates the unnecessary steps involved with FOIA, and allows the public to go right to the source. This makes life simpler for all parties involved – including the government.

• Transparency offers a simple, effective, low-cost tool to put the government back on track and back into the hands of the citizens government ought to serve.

• Implementing transparency at all levels of government, whether in school districts, park districts, county government, or the state, does not demand great effort; it demands basic respect for communities and taxpayers funding government operation.