The Benefits and Challenges of Transparency Websites.

• Author: Barrett, Katherine
• Position: PERSPECTIVE

For many years, the City of Round Rock, Texas, has been putting "boatloads of data" on its website, according to Chief Financial Officer Susan Morgan. But having reams of fiscal information on the Internet didn't mean anything was easy to find. That's been changing, however, and now, with the aid of the Texas Comptroller's office, this growing community of 120,000, 20 miles north of Austin, is one of 12 local governments that has earned the highest possible evaluation in the comptroller's Transparency Stars program: five stars.

This four-year-old initiative provides guidance, graphic support, and a consistent approach to local government transparency. Stars are earned for meeting comptroller-set standards for providing the public with basic financial and budget data, as well as contracting and procurement, economic development, public pension, and debt information.

Why does this matter? R. J. Cross, author of the annual "Following the Money" report for U.S. PIRG (a federation of U.S and Canadian public interest research groups), says that greater transparency in websites increases "public trust in government." Though empirical research to back this up is somewhat thin, Cross and others argue, sensibly, that giving taxpayers a chance to see inside the government's books counters suspicions of nefarious internal government machinations. Moreover, it empowers taxpayers to participate more fully in their governments.

On an even more practical level, clear, publicly available information can save time for overworked finance offices. According to OpenGov, a company that provides transparency services to local governments, websites that provide clear, understandable budget and finance information to residents reduce public records requests by about 20 percent and cut the time spent answering questions from the city council by about half.

As with so many beneficial governmental operations, challenges abound. U.S. PIRG's Cross cites a shortage of resources--both time and staff--to find errors, help ensure privacy and security, focus on data standardization, and provide regularly scheduled updates.

One of the biggest issues she sees is technological weaknesses. Antiquated software and paper-based processes make it difficult to keep websites updated and error-free. Technology can also fall short when legislatures or city councils lay out transparency mandates that practitioners find difficult to achieve because the information does not originally...