Asking by telephone and email for agencies’ reports on transparency, as part of a test of District of Columbia agencies’ public service, the D.C. Auditor found worse knowledge and courtesy than in a raft of other tests (such as calling to learn about a benefit or have a pothole patched).
The Auditor’s June 27 report called the results ”not encouraging.” Continue…
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A year after updating its open data policy, New York City is pushing ahead with plans to automatically refresh more of its data sets and tie public records requests to the open data process — moves hailed by open government advocates, even as some worry about the data’s quality.
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Read More… from A year after a policy update, NYC grapples with ‘the next level’ of open data
This month, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act turned 50. But the passage of time has not slowed the pace of threads toward it and, transitively, toward the American public.
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Read More… from Op-Ed: Court wrong to make police mugshots private
On July 28, 2016, the State Department released the 2016 Fiscal Transparency Report pursuant to section 7031(b) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2016 (Div. K, P.L.114-113) (“the Act”). The report found that 76 of 140 governments reviewed by the Department met minimum requirements of fiscal transparency. Eight governments found not to meet minimum requirements made significant progress toward meeting minimum requirements. The Department continued to update and strengthen the minimum requirements, as required by law.
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Read More… from State Department Releases Annual Fiscal Transparency Report – 2016
Now that Senator Tim Kaine has joined the presidential ticket, his long public career is receiving new scrutiny. One aspect of that career is Kaine’s record on open government.
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Wyoming state government is considering a proposed rule to allow state agencies to charge the public for staff time required to respond to requests to inspect electronic records.
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Read More… from Proposed rule: Wyoming to charge for public records access
A new state law will make it expensive for local governments that choose not to comply with orders to turn over documents ruled public under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
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Read More… from Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signs law boosting fines for FOIA non-compliance
Are you better off now than you were three years ago? If you work in the U.S. Congress, probably not. Your workload has skyrocketed, your job has only gotten more complex, and what you’re paid is peanuts, considering you do one of the most difficult and important jobs in the United States of America.
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Read More… from Straight Talk from Staffers on the Growing Congressional IT Crisis
View highlights from the blog and news feed from Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition here.
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