Posts Tagged ‘government data’

Report: True transparency makes budget trimming easier

(Kansas Policy Institute) Identifying potential savings is critically dependent upon full transparency. Taxpayers and government officials need easy access to information that is uniformly tracked and reported. Local governments may understandably prefer to decide these matters for themselves but their...
August 2nd, 2010 | Fiscal Policy | Read More

Government Contracts Should Be Easier to Access

By Jeremy Thompson July 7, 2010 It shouldn’t be this difficult. Earlier this year, the Alaska Policy Forum submitted public records requests to local governments and school districts looking for any sole-source contracts they may have, asking for the name of the vendor, date of the contract, and...
July 7th, 2010 | Fiscal Policy, Recent News, Transparency | Read More

Indiana Legislators push for Transparency Website

STATEHOUSE (June 24, 2010) – Senate Republican leaders today proposed the Daniels administration unilaterally move forward without a legislative mandate on a new “transparency website” showing budgets and spending by Indiana state government. The key GOP senators said the site should later be expanded...
June 28th, 2010 | Accountability, Fiscal Policy, Policy | Read More

Signatories of petitions now subject to rules of Open Government

(The Spokesman-Review) The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a big victory for open government when it ruled that political petition signers do not have a broad First Amendment guarantee to hide their names from public view. The 8-1 decision stemmed from a challenge by a Washington state religious group,...
June 25th, 2010 | Accountability, Policy | Read More

Opinion: Warming’s Uncertain Science

(Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) Before trillions more of our dollars are wasted in a vain effort to control the weather 100 years from now, our leaders should be much more certain that human activities are actually causing climate harm than is warranted by the uncertain science that has been spun out as...
April 23rd, 2010 | Policy | Read More

The best form of transparency

The best form of transparency
For some, the word “transparency” may seem like a political football. While there exist those who do use it as such, there is a larger worldwide effort to change the perception about government data and its usefulness to the public. Can more disclosure of government data be useful to Alaskans? Alaska...
April 20th, 2010 | Accountability, Featured | Read More