On Aug. 11, the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Columbus, OH, announced the creation of its Center for Transparent and Accountable Government. With the mission of promoting open government initiatives at the federal and state levels, the center is leading the effort in Ohio to provide access to state and local government information and enable user participation in government through its wiki.

The Buckeye Institute, a statewide public policy, education, and research group, recently issued a white paper on Ohio transparency issues, declaring that "while there is a great deal of information available scattered throughout many web sites, Ohio does not meet reasonable, basic standards of transparency."

In response to Ohio's lagging behind on the transparency front, the center created a wiki-based website called OhioSunshine.org, which centralizes access to state and local records such as budget requests, bargaining agreements, and public records policies broken down by municipality.

Mike Maurer, director of the Center for Transparent and Accountable Government, stated that "there are 11 million pairs of eyes to ensure good government in Ohio." According to Maurer, Buckeye's website is modeled on USASpending.gov, which was mandated by law to post federal contracts and grants after the passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) of 2006 (PL 109-282). USASpending.gov is similar to OMB Watch's FedSpending.org, which was licensed to the federal government to meet the law's requirements.

Government Web-based Transparency Programs in Other States

Other states such as Alaska and West Virginia have recently made strides toward centralized government disclosure of financial information on the Web. Beginning in February of this year, Alaska put its "checkbook" online, and West Virginia now posts the names and salaries of state employees.

In a November 2007 report titled The State of State Disclosure, Good Jobs First ranked Ohio in ninth place among American states in terms of public access to government information on contracts, subsidies, and lobbying. Among factors measured were the ease of website use, searchability, level of detail, depth, and "data currency," meaning how soon information was posted online after being generated. In its research, Connecticut ranked highest but still had room for improvement — the report only gave the state a letter grade of "B." While West Virginia's recent program to post state financial information on the Internet may be an improvement since the report was published, it ranked in the bottom two — higher only than Wyoming — a year ago.

Kansas was the first state to pass legislation requiring web access to state expenditure information based on the FFATA example. That 2007 legislation was followed by similar acts in Minnesota, Texas, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and Missouri. According to a July memorandum from Americans for Tax Reform, some 19 states had passed legislation or issued state executive orders creating public Internet disclosure of state financial information, while another 33 states, including Ohio, had stalled or ongoing efforts.

In Ohio, a bill (H.B. 420) similar to FFATA was introduced earlier in 2008. However, it only passed one house of the Ohio legislature and is currently stalled in the other. Regardless, the Buckeye Institute's efforts are a prime example of how local and state groups can utilize existing open records and disclosure laws to make public access to government records easier and ensure government accountability.

Such organizing has already begun in other states. In Virginia, a group called the Alexandria Taxpayers United issued a December 2006 memorandum to the city government to propose a local version of the FFATA legislation.