One of the best protections against corruption is transparency, and in today’s digital age one of the easiest ways for government to be open and accountable is through posting public documents on the Internet.
The Illinois Policy Institute just updated their analysis of all 102 Illinois Counties. The report concentrates on transparency because the citizens can not know what government does if everything is done behind closed doors.
Read the IPI statement on Illinois Transparency: http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=1d3652620e2980a610f8f7a17&id=2dcf8c0bb1&e=3f279b3764
In 2011, McLean County received a grade of “F”. Instead of trying to improve, they got worse. The entire report can be seen here, along with the procedure and criteria IPI used: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67671012/102_counties.pdf
Overall score 1st audit in 2011 52.6
New overall score 44.4
Overall Change -8.3
Below is how they scored on website transparency. The maximum score was 10.
Contact information 9.6
Listing Public Meetings 6.8
Public Records 2.5
Budgets 6.0
Audits 8.0
Expenses 0.0 (The County Auditor, Michele Anderson promised they would comply-16 mths ago!)
Compensation 0.0 (The County Auditor, Michele Anderson promised they would comply-16 mths ago!)
Contracts 2.5
Lobbying 0.0
Taxes 9.0
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