Charlie Quimby: What's up in the state of good government?

Really, it's hard to tell. Minnesota has just ranked last in disclosing certain public information online. Change is coming -- maybe.

By Charlie Quimby

Last update: October 23, 2007 - 6:51 PM

In the aftermath of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, the furor over obscure inspection reports and contracting procedures has highlighted how much the public values timely information about vital public services.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has been made the poster child for nontransparency in state government, but it is hardly alone in making contract information opaque. In fact, as a forthcoming survey of Web-based state government disclosure systems reveals, "Minnesota is the only state in the U.S. that fails to publicly, systematically disclose company-specific data about state contracts or contractors."

The study by Good Jobs First, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, scored Minnesota dead last on disclosing contract information online, although it also said the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) ranked very near the top on job subsidy disclosure.

Since Minnesotans are used to getting praise for good government, any finding that puts us at the bottom stings. What's going on here?

For starters, the ranking disparity illustrates a key principle of information transparency: Government, like anyone else, trumpets what it wants us to know, reveals what it must and keeps the rest under wraps.

Unless agency operations are designed from the ground up to enable full disclosure, transparency costs extra in resources and staff time, with hard-to-measure payback and an obvious downside. What organization really wants to spend all that money so its administrative laundry can be aired in public? Even DEED's job-creation programs, viewed as something to celebrate, are well-documented because the law requires it.

If taxpayers want transparency, government needs a periodic nudge.

Happily, it's gotten one in Minnesota, through a bipartisan bill passed without fanfare last legislative session. The bill called for a new "Google Government" system to provide a searchable Web database that provides information on all government contracts and grants of more than $25,000, starting next year. When that system is up and running, Minnesota should rank far higher on such a study.

As the "owners" of the government enterprise, we taxpayers have come to expect a free flow of information to help us understand choices, make wise decisions about whether to invest more and know whether our tax dollars are getting the results we expect. Providing clear, quality information in publicly accessible forms can serve this important purpose. Bringing more information to light may well help reinforce good business practices and discourage sloppy ones, too.

It's encouraging the state already had taken comprehensive steps to become more open about contracts well before the issue received such attention. But there's one problem: No money was appropriated to implement the Google Government system in Minnesota.

Making information more accessible to the public is only a small aspect of developing a culture of fiscal discipline and accountability. The really hard work, which no state does very well, is ensuring that public dollars are spent to achieve specific outcomes and holding government bodies accountable for what we expect them to achieve.

Charlie Quimby is a communications fellow with Growth & Justice, a Minnesota economic think tank that recently launched a project to identify ways to increase accountability in public-sector performance.

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