By Gene Meyer | Kansas Reporter
TOPEKA — Kansas taxpayers now have better chances, but not great ones, of finding out what state government is doing with their tax money, an online organization that advocates open government said this week.
Sunshinereview.org, which checks more than 6,000 state and local governments, raised its rating of the state’s official www.kansas.gov website to a B from a B-minus, because of improvements Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration made in June.
Sunshine Review rates governments’ openness by awarding points for how clearly and thoroughly they provide access to public officials, budget and tax information, contracts and other public records, and other public business in 10 specific categories.
Kansas gained one point, because its redesigned website is easier to use than the previous version, said Kirstin McMurray, Sunshine Review’s managing editor.
That one-point increase raised the website’s score to eight out of a possible 10 points, or to a B from a B-minus, which still is not a stellar rating, McMurray said.
Most states achieve a B rating and while Kansas’ redesigned site is easier for taxpayers to use, “we still don’t see some additional information that would have raised its score further,” she said.
Kansas’ website, for example, doesn’t disclose any lobbying that state-funded organizations do to secure federal help for the state. And contact information for someone that the public can call directly for help isn’t uniformly available, she said.
Kansas’ track record for openness and transparency in government is a spotty one.
One national study conducted in 2008 by the Better Government Association, or BGA, ranked Kansas’ overall openness 18th in the nation, with an overall average of 56 percent. The Chicago-based association is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog group that advocates for greater transparency and accountability in government.
Two earlier studies in which BGA was involved ranked the state’s handling of Freedom of Information Act and similar public records requests even lower.
Kansas ranked 25th poorest in the nation in a 2007 survey conducted by BGA and the National Freedom of Information Coalition, a nonprofit Columbia, Mo., association of attorneys, academics and journalists advocating for more open government. The state came in 34th worst in 2002 in a study by BGA and Investigative Reporters and Editors, a journalists association also in Columbia, Mo., that seeks to raise investigative reporting standards.
Mike Merriam, a Topeka First Amendment lawyer who works on the Kansas Press Association hotline dedicated to open government questions, said he gets calls nearly every day from journalists and others seeking access to local government information.
State-level problems are more unusual, but they still arise, Merriam said
“We are the government. We need to know what we are doing and how our money is being spent,” he said.
The state has an appointed 15-member Public Finance Transparency Board, formed in 2008 to advise state leaders on opening government financial records to more taxpayers.
But Doug Anstaett, the press association’s executive director and one of the panel’s 15 members, said, “We haven’t met in two, maybe three years.”
Kansas also has a specific website, www.kansas.gov/kanview, created by state legislators and the transparency panel to help taxpayers track $14 billion in total state revenue. But its records are stuck in 2010, because its format doesn’t work with new state computers, said Lisa Jones, general manager of the official Kansas state portal, www.kansas.gov.
Much of the information originally planned for Kanview is also reported on www.kansasopengov.org, a site created by the Kansas Policy Institute that was designated as an official site earlier this year. The institute is a Wichita think tank that advocates lower taxes and free market solutions in public affairs.
Legislators in 2007 who voted to set up the Kanview website and the transparency panel also voted, at the last minute, to end both in 2014, said state Rep. Kasha Kelley, R-Arkansas City.
Kelley said she and others who opposed shutting down Kanview originally planned trying to reverse that decision when legislators returned in 2008. But a budget crisis hit the state as income losses in the Great Recession caused state tax revenue to plummet for two years.
“We’ve been so busy dealing with the budget that no one’s pushed transparency issues,” Kelley said. “I think budget issues and open government issues go hand in hand. The less you have to spend, the more you have to account for it.”
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CONTACT
Office of the governor
Capitol, 300 SW 10th Ave.
Suite 241S
Topeka, KS 66612-1590
Voice – 877-KSWORKS (877-579-6757)
Local – 785-296-3232
For the hearing impaired – 800-766-3777
state Rep. Kasha Kelley, R-Arkansas City
Investigative Reporters and Editors
National Freedom of Information Coalition
