From the Charlotte Observer (3/15/09): With the click of a mouse, you can see how much Alaska taxpayers spent for Gov. Sarah Palin to attend a conference. What Texas taxpayers paid for Gov. Rick Perry's lunch. Or the tab that Kansas taxpayers picked up at Sam's Club for Gov. Kathleen Sibelius.
You can even learn that Missouri taxpayers spent $15,482 at Ann’s Bra Shop for the lingerie needs of state inmates.
And soon, you should get a clearer view of how North Carolina is spending your money.
Gov. Bev Perdue is pushing North Carolina into the growing ranks of states that make public spending more accessible to the people who foot the bill.
One new Web site will show how North Carolina spends its more than $6 billion in federal stimulus money. Another, scheduled to debut this month, will feature a searchable database of state contracts and grants over $10,000.
“I believe just the fact that people like you and me have access to what’s going on in their government … helps erode a sense of cynicism,” Perdue says. “I really personally don’t want people to be cynical, anymore.”
Perdue’s “NC OpenBook Initiative” will cost around $900,000. It grew from a campaign pledge to make state government more transparent. It’s modeled on similar efforts in Maryland and more than a dozen other states, including Alaska’s “Checkbook Online,” Oklahoma’s “OpenBooksOK,” and “KanView” in Kansas.
“This transparency movement is really the next big thing,” says Sandra Fabry, executive director for the Center for Fiscal Accountability, an offshoot of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington.
“It’s just a common sense idea … Taxpayers fund every expense made by government so they deserve to essentially track their tax dollars at a mouse click. And that is what these Web sites are beginning to do.”
Cloudier days
N.C. government hasn’t always been so open.
Many of former Gov. Mike Easley’s official schedules listed no activities or had vague references about office time. And only on his last day in office did he sign an order declaring e-mail messages are no different than any other public record. The Observer and nine other news organizations had sued him after it became clear that some employees were deleting e-mails to keep them from becoming public.
Perdue’s initiatives don’t extend to the General Assembly, which makes its own policies. But her new openness is drawing praise.
“She’s making some great steps to provide more transparency to government and it’s absolutely what’s needed,” says Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “The public still has memories of problems this state has had. And anything the governor can do … to provide more sunshine is a positive step.”
Even before Perdue took office, the new spirit apparently hit the state Department of Transportation.
In early January, for example, the agency’s Web site posted a critical federal report about an 18-mile, four-lane stretch of highway in Wayne and Wilson counties. Just opened in 2005, it already needs up to $22 million in repairs. And when a Triangle TV station recently questioned DOT spending, the agency made a top administrator available for an on-camera interview.
“The words I keep hearing from everybody are accountability and transparency,” says spokesman Ted Vaden. “They recognize that DOT has had problems in the past and has suffered from it. And they want to make it a more open and accessible place.”
Transparency movement
According to Fabry of the fiscal accountability group, the transparency movement got a jump-start in 2006, when then-Sen. Barack Obama teamed up with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. It created a searchable database of federal spending.
Many states soon followed suit.
Most databases allow taxpayers to search by agency and vendor. Sometimes, that’s led to savings.
For example, Fabry says, Texas officials found they had multiple vendors for toner cartridges. By consolidating purchases, they saved $73,000. Because anyone can access such information themselves, she says states can also save money on processing Freedom of Information requests.
In North Carolina, liberals and conservatives say the more openness the better.
Chris Fitzsimon, executive director of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch, calls Perdue’s initiative “an encouraging start.”
John Hood, president of the conservative John Locke Foundation, noted that as newspapers cut back, fewer reporters cover state government.
Both the Observer and Raleigh’s News & Observer have experienced staff cutbacks in the past year, as well as most newspapers around the state.
“In the world we’re entering, transparency investments will pay off big time,” Hood says. “As institutional knowledge is lost or transferred, we’re going to have a system to keep people accountable.”
Though NC OpenBook will take a few months to complete, Perdue says she wants to get at least part of it up as soon as possible.
“I’ve just decided you move ahead real quickly with shock and awe,” she says. “People will say, ‘She meant what she said in the campaign.’”
by Jim Morrill, Staff Writer