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From Ohio Sunshine
OhioSunshine.org is dedicated to transparency and accountability in Ohio government. The site is a wiki, a publicly open online source of information that can be edited by everyone. Read more about our mission and site tone here.
Today's topic, June 30, 2009:
Remember the Stimulus Package passed back in February? Wonder what the Ohio State Government is planning to do with those taxpayer dollars? The Ohio Office of Budget and Management has come out with a Federal Stimulus Fund Use Report. It is viewable through your Adobe Reader and can give us all a better picture of how the finances of our state are changed with the infusion of roughly $135,700,000. A complete budget page has been set up to help citizens see where their money is going here.
A thousand thank yous to our new group of programmers who have been populating the Townships, Municipalities, School District, and the Ohio Transparency Advocates pages. You guys are doing an awesome job! See how they have taken the lead in furthering transparency for all Ohioans and take up the cause with us!
Today's topic, June 29, 2009: With the passage of HR 2454, the federal government now has paved the way for a Cap and Trade system to help curtail carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. As a result, the Tax Foundation has come out with a useful Household Cap-and-Trade Burden Calculator. See how legislation directly affects you and your family!
Today's topic, June 16, 2009: After some shuffling of staff and resources, Ohiosunshine is officially back in action! By posting a plethora of pages in the coming weeks, we will advance the cause of Ohio transparency to a level yet unseen. We posted a Working Page to have a better rubric to work off of when faced with the often times daunting task of getting the word out about this site and its many benefits.
If it is at all possible, please introduce yourself to Dan Barrett, the new site administrator! He can be reached at dbarrett@buckeyeinstitute.org. But don't stop there, if you are a loyal contributor or a passerby - it doesn't matter - register a contributor account with us and make Ohiosunshine even better! Transparency benefits us all but it takes us all to get transparency.
Today's topic, Feb. 24, 2009: In order to truly understand your rights as an Ohio citizen and to know the roles and limits of Ohio government, we have posted the Ohio Constitution in sections. There is also a full text PDF available. Congrats to Jerry Brito and his team for their work in bringing the "shovel-ready" projects, provided by the US Conference of Mayors, which may or may not be completed with stimulus money from the federal government, to light. You can check out the entire listing or the Ohio projects listing. They can further be broken down by city. With this information, we can see how much of Ohio's proposed $4,233,069,611 worth in projects will be implemented.
Today's topic, Feb. 9, 2009: To help some of you contributors get a feeling for some of our upcoming projects, we have started a To Do List where those of you feeling a bit lost might find editing directions there. This is not a list to strictly follow. Those of us working on our individual counties, townships, and/or school districts can go on doing exactly what you are doing. Thanks for your attention and contribution and keep spreading the word about Ohiosunshine!
Today's topic, Feb. 1, 2009: Important News! We have two new salary databases available. The Ohio State Employee Payroll Database is a linked search engine through The Ohio Department of Administrative Services. We have also had the Ohio State University's Highest Paid Employee Database up for a while. With all the traffic both have been receiving, we apologize for any delay in your searches.
Today's topic, Jan. 16, 2009: We have begun to populate the Townships database with basic information. Please, add your own touch to your county's townships!
Today's topic, Jan. 1, 2009: To bring in the New Year with the hope of transparent government, we have finished the first phase in the Ohio County pages. There is some basic information to help us all get more informed about our individual county information while adding your personal touch. Happy New Year!
Today's topic, Dec. 23, 2008: We've had to make some changes in response to spammers. To make edits, you'll have to log in, which of course implies creating an account. We'd prefer not to have to do this, given the open source ethos, but it's the best response we have right now to the damage done by the spam-bots. Let us know of any better solutions. Would verification tools accomplish the same end? Can anyone let us know of a simple way to accomplish that? Drop an email to our director, mmaurer@buckeyeinstitute.org.
Today's topic, Dec. 12, 2008: Our beta version of our State Teacher and Administrator Salary Database proved to be quite a destination today. Thank everyone who showed an interest. We will be working with our service providers to reconfigure our bandwidth and other Internet services, but one thing we know for sure, Ohioans not only deserve to know what their governments are doing--they really want to know!
Today's topic, Dec. 8, 2008: Minority Whip John Adams has returned the Pledge for Transparency and Openness in Government. He joins the other signers of the Pledge for Transparency and Openness in Government.
Today's topic, Dec. 4, 2008: We have begun to populate the County pages with public information sources but we need your help! There are many ways to analyze a county's transparency and we would like to hear how this portion of Ohiosunshine.org can serve you the best. So have at it and show us how you would display the government's operations.
Today's topic, Nov. 18, 2008: With so many levels of government operating in the state of Ohio, we have began to compile lists of every Township, County, and Municipality.
Today's topic, Nov. 14, 2008: After making a public information request to all public school districts in Ohio, we are ready to present a listing of the Superintendent Contracts and Teacher Pay Scales we have received so far. Click on your local school to see how your tax dollars are being spent!
Today's topic, Oct. 31, 2008: Americans for Tax Reform has a great 401(k) calculator widget here. Great stuff, guys, helping us all understand the effects of government policies.
Today's topic, Oct. 28, 2008: Kudos to Dispatch Reporter Randy Ludlow, author of Your Right to Know blog, who has done great work reporting gross abuses of government power of the sort that we can expect to see increasingly often.
Today's topic, Oct. 23, 2008: Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor has taken an important step toward transparency with her announced intention to implement XBRL, an XML exension, that will provide (a) standard formatting, (b) machine readability and (c) open-source accessibility. This is the good stuff when it comes to transparency, and she should be commended.
Today's topic, Oct. 20, 2008: Congratulations to Hamilton County for thrusting itself into the forefront of transparency leadership with its GASP site.
Pledges for transparency and openness in government are continuing to come in, as a few candidates are joining in the spirit of the wiki and listing themselves, while a few old school folks are sending in faxes. Check them all out at Signers of the Pledge for Transparency and Openness in Government.
Today's topic, Oct. 13, 2008: More pledges are coming in; check them out at Signers of the Pledge for Transparency and Openness in Government.
We had a visit from Maverick last week, who did a lot of work organizing and fixing. Maverick is a leading part of a team working at Sunshinereview.org, WikiFOIA.org and related sites. We're lucky for the visit and the example.
Today's topic, Oct. 9, 2008: Candidates for county offices have called in asking about the pledge and about transparency, a few folks have gone directly to the wiki page and added themselves, and we've received calls from folks in Texas and Delaware, too. Bottom line, transparency is something that many people recognize as natural and right. That's a good thing, and it's clear that Ohioans are going to be enjoying more of it. (This administrator is out tomorrow, celebrating an anniversary, so everyone please have a good few days, and remember, the site is yours.)
Today's topic, Oct. 6, 2008: Cheers to State Board of Education candidate John McHenry, Montgomery County Commissioner candidate Joseph K. Ellis, and Clark County Recorder candidate James Morgan for returning their Pledge for Transparency and Openness in Government. We haven't even announced completion of the distribution and they've got them in (and let's give a cheer for the USPS, which gave Federal Express a run for its money. These candidates join Attorney General candidate Robert Owens as believers in transparency that means something.
See who has returned the pledge here, Signers of the Pledge for Transparency and Openness in Government (or if you are a candidate, edit the page yourself and show Ohio citizens that you value government transparency).
The pledge may be viewed here.
Today's topic, Sept. 25, 2008: One of the fundamental transparency categories is jurisdictional transparency - by what law does government act? Today the Plain Dealer reports on what it calls a great achievement, the House of Representatives' approval of the Great Lakes Compact, following Senate approval earlier this year. The Plain Dealer focuses on the substance of controlling Great Lakes water, but just as interesting and potentially as important or more is the idea of compacts, a power addressed in the Constitution: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, . . . enter into any Agreement or Compact with another state[.]" (The article notes that President Bush has promised to sign it, although this wouldn't appear to be a correct reading of the law, as it is the consent of Congress, not the imprimatur of law, that is required by the language. Perhaps they needed an excuse to throw in a tweak: "Mission truly accomplished, in other words.") If anyone is familiar with Compact Clause law and how many true compacts are extant, such information would add to a fair explication of jurisdictional transparency and the nature and extent of our governments.
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Public Records Policies
- Visit this page to view Ohio's Open Records Act, which applies to all Ohio government bodies.
- Visit this page to download or view copies of public records policies for various Ohio jurisdictions.
Navigation, or How the heck do I find anything?
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Getting started
We encourage everyone to view our sister site, Sunshinereview.org, a national wiki effort dedicated to open and honest government.
Persons interested in the Center for Transparent and Accountable Government at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions are welcome to visit us here.
