Someone delivered to my home a large manila envelope containing a hard copy of the above editorial cartoon.
The suggested caption reads,
Why can't the Taxpayers of Northampton see the whole BUDGET…..line item by line item?
BECAUSE…..Maybe the taxpayers can find the extra money for more Police and Fire protection!
I think the cartoon speaks for itself regarding the artist's intent, sans caption. In the minds of some, Northampton's bureaucracy could do better when it comes to transparency. Thanks for the rendering.
Russ Linden in Governing states:
Public agencies benefit in many ways when they operate more transparently. Employees feel more accountable for their behavior; there's greater focus on performance and outcomes; and the public has more knowledge of an agency's operations and how to access them. Perhaps most importantly, however, public trust in government grows. Given the payoffs, why don't more agency leaders behave like Commandant Allen and create transparency? There are several challenges to being transparent in government:
- Unrealistic expectations. Simply talking about transparency leads some people to expect openness in all operations, which is impossible. Information about certain personnel actions, national security and ongoing criminal investigations are just a few of the many activities that must be kept secret if our values and safety are to be protected.
- An unforgiving political and media climate. The "gotcha" mentality in our society today is so aggressive that it takes only one mistake, or one perceived mistake, to ruin trust and hard-earned reputations. When the federal government posted information about the job gains created by the federal stimulus package near the end of 2009, there were some mistakes in the data; immediately, many people totally discounted the entire effort to be transparent, assuming that it was all a lie.
- Concern about the costs of transparency. Even when we get the data absolutely accurate in our efforts to be transparent, many managers worry that the effort can only hurt them. While teaching in an executive development center years ago, I asked our dean why we didn't do any follow-up studies of our students to determine what they gained from our programs three to six months later. He said, "Look, our agency leaders expect us to get very high evaluations from our participants, which we do. But if we do follow-up studies, no doubt some of the managers won't remember all that they learned here and our evaluations will drop. Even if we go from an average rating of 4.8 (on a 1-5 scale) to 4.5, that can only hurt us. It's not worth it…"
Operating in a transparent way offers enormous benefits to government agencies and to the public. It can improve operations, increase accountability and raise trust. But transparency is an enormous change in attitude and behavior, and it raises issues that must be addressed.
Read more about Commandant Allen in the full text of the article which includes comments at:
http://www.governing.com/column/transparency-breeds-self-correcting-behavior
Professor Irene Rubin published a letter on transparency in the spring 2009 edition of The Public Manager, "Bringing Transparency to Municipal Budgets." In her opening remarks she states,
A democratic society needs transparent budgets, and they are the responsibility of those who construct them. If the budget presentation or audit report doesn't respond to the citizens' interests, they are not going to pay attention, but their lack of interest doesn't justify poor content. The reason they are not interested is because the budget doesn't answer their questions.
On interfund transfers she writes:
Transparency problems can also be severe concerning interfund transfers. City budgets are set up for accountability on the basis of little pockets of money, each of which is earmarked for a specific purpose. There are legal requirements for the spending of the money when it's in that fund. What happens when it moves to another fund? Or on to yet a third fund? Once the funds have made two hops, they are no longer traceable by an auditor. These transfers can be used to obscure deficits.
Rubin recommends:
Public officials can employ methods to demonstrate that there is no corruption or waste, gaining back the lost public trust. These methods include performance budgeting, which uses benchmarks, best practices, and comparisons with other, high-performing cities.
She concludes:
Better formatting is one way to make things clearer. One approach is highlighting, the electronic version of yellow markers in text books. More important, budgeters need to use the Internet much more, making the budget available in downloadable form. Let people make their own analyses. Budgets need to be in a form that allows for questioning and searches using key words. The backup documentation should be available throught the Internet.
Cities say, "We can't do this, we can't tell you about the contracts, contractors, and bidding process because it would take up all of the budget." Actually, they can put if on a Web site. Chicago has done so because of charges of corruption (which were probably justified). As a result, city contracts are exposed to much scrutiny. Chicago put them all up on the Web in searchable form. In essence, the city said, "Go look!" It's fun to browse through. The Web site needs to include links to the laws that support the budget, highlighting the legal and illegal. These actions will make municipal budgeting more transparent and accountable, building the public trust.
