State of Oregon Transparency Program a bit Opaque
R.I.L.F. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) helped push the initiative for more governmental transparency.
The State of Oregon launched a website this week that is supposed to act as a large step forward in governmental transparency. The website, which is found at www.oregon.gov/transparency has several categories for enraged voters to pour over including: State Budget, Agencies and Performance, Revenue and Expenditures, Contracts and State Employment.
The press release included:
“The Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has been working on the site for the past six months and they were able to develop this new venture using existing resources. “I was very pleased to see the “can-do” approach from DAS, especially during tough budget times,” Thatcher noted, “the upcoming tax measures have generated a lot of questions from voters about the state budget and this new site should help them dig down for some answers.”
Representative Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) is one of the names attached to the movement and the website, but to be honest I was hoping for a better showing from my hometown representative. You see, after much clicking around I failed to figure out how much money the website itself had cost taxpayers to create. One would think that would be, you know… relevant.
Oh well. I suppose it is still a work in progress…
Is the ‘R’ of R.I.L.F. supposed to mean representative, or Republican?
A bold step … however, my favorite part of the website is the disclaimer in the yellow box at the bottom of the main page:
“Because no comprehensive review for accuracy has occurred, the data or information may contain errors, omissions or misstatements.”
Giving your average Joe-the-plumber access to ALL information is only helpful if they have some way to contextualize actual, accurate data from erroneous noise. Even if the responsibility of categorizing these two kinds of information lies with the individual, I’ll bet you can expect to see Op-eds to newspapers and internet blogs siting stats and records from this page “as fact”, even if it , you know … is not.