FORT WAYNE – Fort Wayne residents will soon be able to see every city government expense – from buying pencils to paving a road – on the Internet.
The City Council’s recent vote requiring this information to be posted online comes as governments across the country are making their data more accessible to the taxpayers who finance those purchases.
Making this information available to interested residents is critical, especially in the digital information age, to maintain trust between elected and electorate, according to Steve Key, general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association. Not to mention, it could save taxpayers money.
“The more information is shared with the citizens, the greater confidence those citizens will have that their taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely,” Key said.
This willingness to share comes after many local governments acted to keep their information private. The city’s new willingness to list all expenses stands in particular contrast to some recent decisions.
Allen County Auditor Lisa Blosser said the rush to share information electronically stems partly from a greater public demand to see the data. As trillions of dollars are spent at the federal level, people want to make sure their tax money is being used properly, even in local government.
“I think there’s just more of an outcry for transparency,” she said. “Taxpayers want to see how money is being spent.”
Blosser began posting county expenses online in June, a month ahead of a county ordinance requiring her to do so. She admits most of the information she posts every other week is mundane, but showing government is spending money appropriately is important, she said.
For example, the most recent report includes $3,000 the sheriff’s office paid to the U.S. Postal Service. The site does not detail why the expenses were made, but Blosser said people with questions about them can contact her office.
The state is taking the initiative as well after receiving a failing grade on its online transparency from a study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. While legislative efforts to break down spending online for residents have failed in the past two years, Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration is working on a state website to focus on spending.
Rep. Eric Turner, R-Marion, previously said 30 states now have a similar law, but Democratic leadership in the House blocked it for the second year in a row at the last minute. The idea behind the law is for the state auditor to break down state spending on the Internet, including comparisons to recent years. He added that some lawmakers don’t feel the provision is necessary.
City contradiction
Discussions of two bills by the Fort Wayne City Council in the past year show a marked difference in the city’s attitude toward openness.
Last fall, Councilwoman Liz Brown, R-at large, proposed a bill to require the city to provide a list of consultants hired every quarter. Mayor Tom Henry’s administration quickly attacked the proposal as forcing more work on an already taxed city staff and a potential jobs killer by forcing the city to reveal contracts that could reveal sensitive economic development efforts.
“This ordinance is going to say, ‘We’re closed for business,’ ” then-deputy mayor Greg Purcell said at the time.
Only after several amendments were made to give the city disclosure exemptions did the administration agree to the bill and the council approved it.
The bill was crafted after several council members became unhappy about city contracts that fell just below the $100,000 threshold requiring council approval. Those contracts included a $95,000 annual contract for three years to hire the High Performance Government Network, the city’s hiring of lobbyists to push for a casino referendum and a recent $95,000 contract to hire a firm to help keep Navistar in Fort Wayne.
That reaction was in contrast to what happened when the council this month unanimously approved an ordinance requiring the city to post all of its expenses online. The new law only provided an exception for employee compensation and did not mention economic development efforts. Yet unlike the consulting report, the Henry administration supported this effort.
Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy told the council the work can be done at little or no additional cost.
The change in attitude came as a shock to Brown, who mistakenly thought the administration had drafted the online expense bill because of its overwhelming support.
“We got so much pushback before,” Brown said.
Councilman Mitch Harper, R-4th, wrote the online expense bill for the city and said he was glad to see the support from the administration. He said it appears Malloy, who replaced Purcell last month, has been given the authority to take control of the city’s transparency efforts, which should make them professional.
“She seems to represent something of a change,” he said.
Harper had his own problems with city disclosure. For about a year after taking office, he asked for monthly financial reports outlining expenses and revenues. After getting no response, he wrote a bill that now requires those reports to be created and distributed to council members.
Transparent benefits
Malloy said she began talking about making city government more transparent with Henry in January when she was a consultant hired by the city. The city will only see a benefit if it helps explain what it does to residents, she said.
Unlike her previous employer, Chicago, which was prompted to disclose information because of scandal, she said Fort Wayne and other communities are doing things properly. This sometimes means information is not shared because there is no impetus to do so, but she hopes to change that.
She said departments have been a bit cautious about sharing private information, but withholding it creates an impression with residents that there is a reason the information isn’t released.
“They really don’t have anything to hide,” Malloy said of city departments.
While there might be some contracts that shouldn’t be released immediately because of economic development concerns, she couldn’t think of an example that would meet that criteria. The first model of the city’s online expense portal is expected to be complete by the end of August. Eventually, she said she would like to see the city have a site similar to the one used in Chicago. She said Henry is supportive of the project, adding he wanted to see it go live “tomorrow.”
Sharing information gives government departments an opportunity to save money by looking at how goods are bought, the press association’s Key said. It also allows residents to share their expertise.
The April report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups said government expense websites were cheap to produce and helped save millions. For example, in the two years after the launch of its transparency website, the Texas Comptroller reported $4.8 million in savings from more efficient government administration. And Utah estimated millions in savings from reduced information requests.
The group in Washington, D.C., describes itself as an advocate for the public interest.
Malloy, however, said transparency needs to go beyond technology and websites. She said it needs to involve a process of explaining what the city does and why it makes certain decisions. This is why she doesn’t just want to list city expenses like a checkbook but provide context to what those expenses are.
The city’s efforts to post contracts and other expenses online may have an immediate benefit to the administration. Councilwoman Brown wrote a bill requiring all consulting and lobbying contracts to come to the council for approval, regardless of dollar amount based on the premise that the public deserves an explanation of those expenses.
“Constituents are frustrated because there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason why these dollars are spent,” Brown said.
But if the mayor’s newest initiative helps answer all those questions, Brown said she would consider pulling her bill, allowing the mayor to keep the authority of hiring those firms without council approval.
Councilman Harper said it is about time Fort Wayne began providing its information freely, although he said he will withhold judgment until he sees how the new programs perform.
“Transparency is not a radical, foreign concept in government,” he said. “We live in an information age and you need to accommodate it.”
