Sunday was the start of Sunshine Week, an initiative of the American Society of News Editors. Sunshine Week is used to promote the importance of transparency, government accountability, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). West Virginia Watchdog will be showing you some of the groups and and tools we use to shine the light on state government.

Transparency these days means state, county, and city governments creating access to public information through websites. Sunshine Review helps evaluate these websites to determine whether they’re being truly transparent.

Sunshine Review “is a non-profit organization dedicated to state and local government transparency.” The site launched in 2008 as wiki, meaning that anyone can add to the information at Sunshine Review.

To evaluate government websites, Sunshine Review uses a “10-point Transparency Checklist.” Websites must provide access to budget information, open meetings laws, contact information for elected and administration officials, information on building permits and zoning, audits, contracts, taxpayer-funded lobbying, public records, and tax information.

In order to award the best state, county, and city websites, Sunshine Review recently launched the Sunny Awards.

“Sunny Award winners deserve recognition for making information available to citizens and for setting a transparency standard that all governments can, and should, meet,” said Mike Barnhart, President of Sunshine Review. “Access to information empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable for the conduct of the publics’ business and the spending of taxpayers’ money. Official accountability is the corner stone of self government and liberty.”

Sunny Awards – Sunshine Review

West Virginia did not win a Sunny Award, but the state did receive a B- for their state website. The state website recieved high marks for being easy to navigate, having a list of state employees, and having information on lobbyists, audits, and contracts. However, the state suffered for not having information for filing FOIA requests or information on taxpayer-funded lobbying.

The same couldn’t be said the West Virginia’s counties. Last year we reported that the majority of county governments in West Virginia received F grades in areas of transparency, and some counties still didn’t have websites as of Sept. 22, 2009.

…Very few counties made the grade and the ones that received passing grades did so only barely. No counties had information on on their contracts/bids, lobbying, or public records access. Only two counties posted their budget information online, and another two posted audit information on their county websites. Four counties posted their meeting notices/minutes online, and another four posted their tax information online. Six counties had information and applications for building/zoning permits available for download. Lastly, 13 counties posted contact information for elected officials online, while 16 posted contact information for administration officials online.

The best grades given went to Kanawha and Jefferson counties, which both received C-. Kanawha County received high marks for posting the audio and video of County Commission meetings, but received negative remarks for not posting audits, lobbyist data, or information on how to request public records. Jefferson County was praised for posting annual financial statements, as well as zoning information, audits, and tax records. They were also cited for not posting lobbyist data, contracts, or information on how to request public records.

Only Wood, Mineral, Greenbrier, Cabell, and Berkeley counties received the next lowest grade, D-. The remaining 48 West Virginia counties received an F grade. 27 of those did not have any website.

W.Va Counties Receive F in Transparency – West Virginia Watchdog

Related articles by Zemanta

• West Virginia Teachers in 22 Kanawha County Schools to Attend Carnegie Learning Math Academy (eon.businesswire.com)
• Why the West Virginia Mountaineers Deserve the Final No. 1 Seed (bleacherreport.com)