Private universities are pushing for protections from lawsuits stemming from a requirement that they now make records from their police forces available to the public.
State Rep. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, has submitted a bill that would give private institutions such as the University of Dayton and Wittenberg University the same legal protections afforded to public colleges and universities.
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Read More… from Ohio bill would give private universities protection
Ohio in 2014 launched a searchable database of the state's expenditures, allowing residents to browse how their money was being spent by both the state and participating local governments.
Government watchdogs view it as a model for something that could be applied across the nation. "It's a transparency initiative rooted in the concept of making the government small and the individual big," said Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who launched OhioCheckBook.com through his office.
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Read More… from How is the government spending your money? Ohio’s figured it out
A four-page bill is causing a stink in Cincinnati. It's a back-and-forth battle about parents’ right to know versus private schools’ right to independent operation.
The bill would require private schools to publish some information on their websites, including enrollment and financial data. Other information – reading lists and school bylaws, for example – would have to be accessible to parents of enrolled students.
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Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel is cajoling thousands of local governments, public universities, the Ohio pension systems and others to post their expenditures on his government transparency website, OhioCheckbook.com, but until recently he had omitted Ohio’s 395 charter schools – an entire wing of public education that costs taxpayers nearly $1 billion in state funding each year – from his call list.
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Read More… from Ohio treasurer asks charter schools to put finances online
In Ohio, you can see where your tax dollars are going thanks to a website funded by taxpayer dollars.
It calls for transparency in spending, using an interactive tool to illustrate and animate a pie chart, which slices up Ohio's $40 billion in spending. Continue…
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Read More… from Ohio state treasurer pushes fiscal transparency in Toledo
When Ohioans find their access to government thwarted and sue to assert their open-government rights, the odds are stacked against them in the Ohio Supreme Court.
So finds a recent analysis by the Ohio Coalition for Open Government in a report that examines 32 such cases between 2010 and this year. Of those cases, only 12 rulings favored open government. The remaining 20 decisions went the other way. Continue…
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More than 100 local governments added their expenditures to the state's online checkbook on Thursday, a move Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel hopes will spark other local entities open their books to taxpayers.
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Read More… from Ohio’s expenditure database includes more than 100 local governments
CLEVELAND – Five months after their initial roll out, police body cameras are now in four of Cleveland’s five police districts. Police are asking for public feedback through an online survey as some question whether the program is achieving its goals, which include accountability and transparency.
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Wondering how much the city spent on road salt this winter? Interested in the expenses for keeping up the city's parks?
That information will soon be at your fingertips.
Stow has decided to become a pioneer in Summit County by becoming the first entity to participate in the state treasurer's Government Transparency Program. Continue>>>
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Read More… from Stow first in Summit County to follow Ohio’s lead, put checkbook online
The ongoing assault by Ohio Republican lawmakers on public records laws and those who fight for citizen access to records shows no signs of slowing down.
House Republicans tried to use the state's two-year budget this month to shield themselves and state officials from new citizen-initiated records audits being conducted by Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, a Republican who refreshingly doesn't follow the party line 100 percent of the time.
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