Illinois Needs Strong Transparency Reform, Not Tepid Half-Measures
By Adam Andrzejewski
Republican Candidate for Governor

It should be considered a basic right of taxpayers - and every resident of this state – that all public spending should be accessible to the public.

After years of political corruption under more than one administration, the need for full transparency in the state's finances is obvious to every informed citizen.  Therefore, putting every dime of state spending online, in real time, is critical for reforming the state and beginning the road back to solvency.  Elected officials are more accountable in a transparent environment.  Let's not forget, they are spending our money.

HB 35, which establishes the Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal (ITAP), is a good first step in providing this transparency.  I welcome the creation of a website where spending is made searchable.  Every state contract should be available online as well.  This is necessary if we are serious about ending the culture of secret spending “shell-games” which have infected Springfield for so long.

However, HB 35 is unnecessarily weak, and these weaknesses must be addressed. A weak bill will only create new loopholes for Illinois insiders to exploit.

First, ITAP only concerns expenditures of $10,000 or more.  Therefore, if a state official wants to spend $25,000 secretly, they would simply break it up in transactions less than $10,000 each.  This critical loophole will enable insiders, legislators and bureaucrats to hide spending from the public. It must be closed.

Defenders of HB 35 might argue that a $10,000 threshold is reasonable.  It is not.  Current state rules require that purchases above a certain dollar amount use the RFP (Request For Proposal) process.  It is a common practice to evade the RFP process by breaking down the contract into a number of transactions that are individually beneath that threshold. This practice of evading the law has contributed to wasteful spending.

Second, there are no reporting time requirements, nor any penalties in HB 35. State employees and bureaucrats have no deadline by which to submit this information to be put online.  They could take days, weeks, or simply never submit the information at all.

In 2007, Auditor General William Holland attempted to determine how many programs, agencies and units of government are currently in operation.  His office reported that numerous (possibly hundreds) of state programs exist that are not identified on any government register or list.  Many agencies did not (or would not) cooperate with his office.  If bureaucrats can ignore a Constitutionally-created office, they can also ignore laws with no enforcement mechanisms or penalties.

The Freedom of Information Act does provides an enforcement mechanism where citizens can go to court to force government units to turn over requested documents. However, absent penalties, government units routinely ignore FOIA requests to stall citizens.  This forces citizens to either hire lawyers or end their attempts to hold government accountable.  Without strong enforcement mechanisms and penalties, ITAP will be accountability in name only.

Transparency is the crucial ingredient to reforming the state.  That's why, in 2007, I founded the organization For the Good of Illinois, which brought more transparency to school districts, park districts, and municipalities. For the Good of Illinois was the resource for the first county in Illinois, DuPage, to put its check register on-line.  Over $1 billion dollars of public spending is now available for public scrutiny on the Internet.  As Justice Brandeis once said, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

It is past time to put every dime of public spending online in real time.  But it is essential to include deadlines, enforcement mechanisms and penalties. Lastly, the law properly should apply to every unit of local government, as these entities spend billions of taxpayer dollars as well.

Opponents might argue that transparency may not have prevented the corruption we've seen in recent years.  But there's no question transparency would have allowed us to see it years earlier and therefore stop it much sooner.