Sunshine Week is a national project devoted to government transparency. Although it started Sunday with a rainy day, a new Web site designed to shed some light on Illinois government surfaced.
On March 12, Gov. Pat Quinn announced the launch of the Sunshine Project Web site, designed to increase accountability and openness in state government. It puts helpful, public information in one place. Teachers’ certifications, for example, are in a searchable database available off the site’s main page. Information about nursing homes in the state is now searchable through a drop-down menu. The number of complaints against child care centers is searchable by town.
There are many other categories and we think having a place citizens can turn to as a central location for these facts is an important step toward not only educating citizens, but correcting the serious problems our state is facing.
The site is easy to use and much simpler than digging through a long, complicated series of Web pages, or dealing with government bureaucracy to find the answers to the important questions. While all of the information on the site may have been available before, not all of it was accessible.
The ease of putting information on a Web site leaves little excuse for guarding it on a computer in Springfield. Citizens should not have to go through the process of requesting something that could easily be online, if only for the simple reason that many people will not bother to seek out something so difficult to find. Public information is supposed to be just that – public.
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The government is not supposed to operate in secret, behind closed doors and with the shutters drawn. Nothing good can happen when citizens are in the dark about state government. We give the government so much power over our lives because we recognize how it can benefit us; it is only as useful as far as it serves the public. Putting information out in the open for scrutiny and analysis helps people judge how well their elected officials are doing their jobs and what is and isn’t working. For example, payroll information for state employees is available on this Web site, and that information is important for taxpayers to be able to see.
Good information also allows people to make informed choices. Having the facts at our fingertips can only help when it comes time to make those decisions.
The Illinois public and its government are facing some serious problems. It’s only when things are brought into the light that they can be dealt with.
