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an effort to create searchable online databases for government expenditures
a tool to highlight the hypocrisy of tax hikers
Constitutional or statutory requirement to rein in growth of revenues end expenditures
a commitment made by elected officials and candidates for elected office never to raise taxes
Raising the bar for tax increases
Requiring a cool-off period for all bills with a fiscal impact
pork-barrel spending - the broken windows of the budget
DuPage County Illinois Out In Front on Transparency
Thursday, December 17, 2009 1:03 PM
by Mattie Duppler The Sun-Times media has an editorial today extolling DuPage County in Illinois for setting a standard for transparency in the state. While both our friends at the Illinois Policy Institute and the state itself run portals that track spending, DuPage County has its own site that allows taxpayers to track spending at the local level.
The site allows visitors to search by department, vendor, budget category or purchase order or check number. While expenditures are displayed in a static graph that doesn’t allow taxpayers to manipulate the data, we appreciate the level of detail – most expenditures list a description and purchase order number to track the expense.
More importantly, the editorial goes on to laud efforts to disclose spending, noting that transparency is a way to hold spending accountable. Also, the DuPage County Auditor has offered the technology that enabled him to put the county spending online to other counties – we hope other local governments take him up on the offer.
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