transparency – Page 12 – National Freedom of Information Coalition

Colorado lawmaker plans bill to make government more transparent

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A Colorado state senator plans to introduce legislation next session that will require governments to provide electronic databases in the format they're kept after open records advocates questioned why some government agencies are less transparent.

Denver and other governments often provide databases and spreadsheets in locked PDF formats even when the records are maintained in Microsoft Excel or other formats, which make them easier to sort and analyze.

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Editorial: Brownback vs. Transparency in Kansas

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Dog catchers, school board members, county commissioners, governors — all politicians run for public office swearing up and down they’ll stand against government secrecy — they’ll swear your right to be informed about the people and processes that govern you will not be infringed on their watch.

And then they win election.

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Transparency groups target Bloomberg PAC in long-shot bid to unmask donors

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In a push to expose the billionaires trying to influence elections, advocacy groups filed complaints Thursday against 18 television stations that aired ads for the Independence USA PAC.

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Editorial: What’s in a tax break? Washingtonians should know

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Imagine if your employer refused to say what’s being deducted from your paycheck, or your bank declined to reveal what’s automatically withdrawn from your account.

That’s the situation for Washingtonians trying to figure how much state revenue is given up through myriad tax breaks.

Some of these tax breaks are important for economic development. But the public and lawmakers must know their costs to decide if they’re worthwhile investments.

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Iowa’s judicial branch flunks transparency survey

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Iowa’s Judicial Branch flunked a recent transparency and accountability study because of barriers to public access to information, a lack of legal requirements for judicial evaluations and concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

Those concerns include limited access to judicial officers’ asset disclosures, which can reveal potential conflicts of interest and which aren’t audited for accuracy, and a lack of restrictions on judges returning to the private sector after serving on the bench.

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Lawmakers question public boards’ openness and transparency

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How transparent should a public university governing board be?

Politicians in a number of states, who often say they’re responding to concerns from constituents, have been calling for appointed or elected governing boards of their public colleges, universities and systems to be more open, particularly when it comes to public meetings.

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Supreme Court takes up healthcare price transparency

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Everyone from President Obama, to GOP presidential hopefuls, to people with high-deductible health insurance have said the more transparency in the pricing of healthcare, the better.

But Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take up a case that could make it harder to know how much the nation’s largest employers are paying hospitals and doctors for their employee's medical costs.

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Editorial: Disclosure on lump sum payments in Texas

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Lump sum payments from campaign and political action committees to consultants are blocking the public view of Texas campaign spending.

At the moment, the public is being asked to trust that these dollars have valid final destinations. That’s because they are simply reported, sometimes in six-figure amounts, as “consulting” or “consulting fees,” according to a recent San Antonio Express-News article.

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Editorial: Open data grows in 2015 (but not enough)

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As 2015 winds to a close, we can look back on a year of success stories and failures when it comes to transparency in government.

At the start of the year, the federal government began releasing its enterprise data inventories — comprehensive indexes of the data sets it collects — to the public. The move, which came in response to a Sunlight Foundation Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, was a major victory for government transparency.

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Report: New York’s regional councils lack transparency

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New York's regional council process that has awarded nearly $3 billion since 2011 for economic development lacks transparency and doesn’t adequately report on the outcome of various projects, according to a new report.

The report from the Citizens Budget Commission concluded that state hasn’t provided enough details to properly evaluate whether the 10 regional councils are creating jobs with the money doled out by the state.

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