It only takes a quick review of the day’s headlines to know it’s going to be another bad, bad day for Mayor Daley, who is on the cusp of releasing a city budget that is an estimated $420 million in the red.

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Trashing the taxpayers

For years, the Daley administration has used city jobs in Streets and Sanitation to reward political workers. The bloating comes with a price, and now we know it — about $21 million a year. That, according to the inspector general’s report, is the total when you add up the money spent on the city wages for no work, plus other lost savings.

That’s $21 million Chicagoans pay every year for nothing.

Chicago Tribune: Your tax dollars at work

Like his father, he has bought labor peace during his 19-year tenure, in part by not demanding an end to such wasteful nonsense as the three-man garbage crew; many suburbs deploy one-man trucks. Now comes elaborate proof that the mayor’s garbage operation is a costly scam on taxpayers… With budget dollars tight and taxpayers furious with every level of government, maybe Daley finally will attack systemic cheating like this rip-off by garbage workers. He’ll never have a better excuse to downsize these three-man crews.

Shockingly (NOT!), union leaders are already crying foul, offering up a conspiracy theory that claims Mayor Daley is in cahoots with the Inspector General in an attempt to justify cutting sanitation jobs before Daley’s big red budget release.

Chicago Sun-Times: Garbage crews ‘paid to do nothing’ city surveillance finds

Lou Phillips, business manager for Laborers Union Local 1001, said it’s no accident that Hoffman issued his report at a time when hundreds of laborers are targeted for layoffs to ease a budget crunch.

“Sounds a little bit like a witch hunt to me. They’re laying off 1,080 people. Over 300 are members of Local 1001. Read between the lines,” he said. “It could be a downed truck. It could be between loads. There’s a number of different situations” that could cause down time.

Downed truck. Truck between loads. Right, right, right…

Read the full report for yourself- and prepare to be disgusted.

I acknowledge and state that, at a minimum, the following items must be maintained on a Web site operated by each government entity:
• Financial data shall include all contracts, the checkbook register, all budgets, collective
bargaining agreements, payroll, all financial audits, and all taxes, fees and other revenues
collected by each government entity.
• Administrative data shall include, with sufficient advance time to comply with notice
requirements and to be useful to the citizens served, notices of meetings and agendas, with
supporting documentation; minutes of meetings, both in draft and approved form; contact
information for elected and appointed officials, including email contact information;
performance audits; a database of voting records; ethics, lobbying and conflict of interest
disclosures.
• Public records process data shall include a public records policy, a record retention schedule,
contact information for public records response personnel, and any forms used, in addition to
regular reports on response times, completeness and other public records performance data
such as number of requests made.
• Jurisdiction and compliance data shall include any relevant constitutions, charters,
intergovernmental agreements, bylaws and other fundamental documents.

Check out Buckeye’s Ohio Sunshine wiki to see the candidates vowing to show you how they spend your money.

“I decided to investigate, gather facts and quotes from reliable sources…[and present] that information to my neighbors for their consideration,” says Mora.

Mora requested numerous items from the school district, including expenditures, capital plans, audits, and notices. He is interested in seeing just how the district spends taxpayers’ money prior to a November vote that will determine whether property taxes will increase to fund the schools.

Wow- using public information gathered from the school district to become informed on a bonding-type issue seems… radical? The school board apparently thought so, as they retained the services of the Schartz, Lipton and Taylor law firm of Chicago to deal with Mr. Mora’s FOIA requests. The firm sent a letter letting Mr. Mora know they are keeping an eye on him.

Your numerous FOIA requests demonstrate that you are mis-using FOIA as a vehicle to address personal issues rather than public interest…The use of FOIA to further a personal rather than public need is clearly an abuse of the Act…We are writing at this time to make you aware that we will work closely with the District to scrutinize and future FOIA requests propounded by you upon the District to insure they are within the spirit of the Act.

Read the rest of the law firm’s letter here.

Mis-using FOIA? What is the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act? Well, in Illinois, the purpose can be found in Section 1:

Pursuant to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of government, it is declared to be the public policy of the State of Illinois that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those who represent them as public officials and public employees consistent with the terms of this Act. Such access is necessary to enable the people to fulfill their duties of discussing public issues fully and freely, making informed political judgments and monitoring government to ensure that it is being conducted in the public interest.

(emphasis mine)

Sounds like Mr. Mora is doing exactly what the Act was designed to enable- citizen activism and oversight. Here’s an idea: Ridgewood High School District 234 should volunteer to be more open with taxpayers, so FOIAs aren’t necessary to see how their tax dollars are spent. (See the Sunshine Review transparency checklist for ideas.)

Furthermore… schools should consider teaching children how to petition their government through FOIA requests as a way to bring civics back into the classroom. This would promote citizen involvement and allow more people to keep and eye on what’s happening behind the doors of government. After all, Responsible Citizens = Responsive Government.

Experiencing some writers block?

Shop for ideas on Sunshine Review’s Transparency Checklist or check out Americans for Tax Reform’s outstanding proposals here.

H/T: ATR

This is the Trib’s explanation:

1. Many city workers make a lot more than average Chicagoans.

The generous wages and benefits given to many in the roughly 38,000-strong municipal workforce amount to 80 percent of the cost of running the city’s government, making it impossible to significantly cut the budget without reducing personnel costs.

2. The city depends heavily on taxing real estate sales.

Despite the burgeoning housing crisis, which began last year, Daley’s budget analysts expected to reap $210 million from real estate transfer tax revenue this year, slightly more than in 2007. Instead, with the real estate sales slumping, the city’s analysts believe that this revenue will total no more than $155 million. No other municipality in the state has a higher real estate transfer tax than Chicago’, according to the Chicago Association of Realtors.

3. Millions of tax dollars are siphoned to boost development.

More than $500 million a year goes into the city’s tax-increment financing (TIF) accounts, according to Cook County Clerk David Orr. Diverted from property tax revenues in Chicago’s 160-odd TIF districts, the funds are used to subsidize development projects in those areas rather than going to the school system, parks and the city’s general fund. That main operating fund, which supports police, fire and other services, is the one that is facing a funding shortfall.

4. City Hall builds little cushion into the budget.

Every year’s budget is merely a forecast of how much government expects to rake in and how much of that money will be spent. City officials should keep 5 percent to 15 percent of their operating budget in reserve, according to the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association.

Wages, real estate, TIFs, and cushion… but where’s the Transparency? Citizens should have easy access to lobbying costs, ethics policies, audits, and tax information on the city government website. As a Chicago resident, I feel the pinch of big government every day- yearly parking fees, rising transit costs, bottled water taxes, the highest sales tax in the nation, etc etc etc… Maybe Cook County voters wouldn’t be considering an advisory referendum to add a recall provision if they were confident their money was being spent responsibly.

Look here for the Windy City transparency information I was able to find.

The newest kid on the block is Open Book New York, a site by state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. It has expanding databases for expenditures for counties, cities, schools, and fire districts as well as state contracts and agency spending.

The one temporary drawback of the site, according to The Daily Messenger, is a lack of recent facts and figures.

Regrettably, local government spending is available only up to 2006. The comptroller’s office said it takes time to finalize budget numbers sent in by municipalities, but hopes to provide newer data at some point. That would be useful. DiNapoli also plans to include local property tax burdens and financial information from local public authorities.

It’s great to have the transparency trifecta of Open Book NY, See Through NY, and Project Sunlight.

review state government spending, current salaries of individual state employees, financial documents, vendor information, and listings of job classifications. You can also follow easy links to local government information websites.

Sounds great… but here’s an interesting little background nugget from NTU…

Back in January, State Representative Hal Wick, who received the American Legislative Exchange Council’s prestigious Legislator of the Year Award in 2006, had introduced transparency legislation. The legislation gained approval from the house and senate, only to be vetoed by Governor Mike Rounds in March (even then, the house still overrode the veto, although the senate did not). Why would Governor Rounds veto this bill, and then decide to launch a transparency website just six months later?

Face it- transparency is a great issue for the predictable crowd of taxpayers, ethics gurus, citizen journalists, government wonks, and anyone wanting to do business with the state… but it’s also a political goldmine. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do, easy to accomplish, somewhat insulates candidates on ethics issues (whether they need it or not), and it pays political dividends for years to come.

The funding for Way Finding, totaling nearly $740,000 for the 148 signs, was through the third penny sales-tax program in 2006, said a Tulsa Public Works Department senior engineer, Glen Sams. The designs were discussed in a committee of downtown and city leaders, he said.

“We started last fall on various options, sizes and color,” Sams said. “This was an art deco design and we thought it needed art deco colors.”

I’m glad they decided on art deco, but who decided on price? Call me crazy, but doesn’t $5,000 per sign seem just a little steep?

Other questions that immediately arise:
*Who was the vendor?
*How was the vendor selected?
*Was this project competitively bid?
*Did the vendor send campaign contributions to city officials responsible for the signage decisions?
*What does Oklahoma City and surrounding towns pay for signage?

I’m not sayin’… I’m just askin’.

It looks like Rhode Island has twice the transparency now, which is outstanding. I can’t wait to see what’s uncovered with these two sites sniffing out waste and inefficiency.

Government should be monitored the same way. There should be spending transparency in all levels, so taxpayers can trust their money is being used wisely and efficiently. If the Colorado government uses tax dollars to support a bloated bureaucracy that doesn’t use competitive bidding practices and sets inappropriate priorities, then possibly it needs to have some internal reform before three ballot initiatives pass that will raise taxes. Does Colorado have a bloated bureaucracy? No one knows, nor will know, as long as there is no transparency.

The Independence Institute makes the same point in another op-ed, this time for the Denver Daily News. Read it here.
If the Colorado government cannot be trusted to explain to taxpayers how their money is currently being used, why would voters give it more cash?

Keep the drum-beat going: NO TAXATION WITHOUT INFORMATION!