It’s Election time in South Carolina. On Nov. 2, voters from all walks of life and from all corners of the state will choose our leadership – from U.S. Senator to Governor to our local S.C. House representative.
In addition, many communities across the state will also decide on local town, city or county council races.
As Election Day nears, several candidates for these local offices have begun calling me to ask questions about a Local Government Transparency Initiative the Comptroller’s Office began last year.
Under the Local Government Transparency Initiative, I began encouraging cities, counties and school districts to post their check registers on the Internet. This is a relatively easy and inexpensive undertaking, and it gives ordinary citizens easy access to details about how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent – which is a goal we should all share.
(In 2008, the Comptroller’s Office was successful in establishing a State Government Transparency Web Site, which allows taxpayers to view the individual expenditures of more than 80 state agencies. Appealing to local units of government to do the same thing seemed like the logical next step.)
This Local Government Transparency Initiative has been more successful than I had ever imagined, and it continues to gain momentum. At the time of this writing, more than 80 cities, towns, counties and school districts have begun posting their check registers on the Internet. Government is more transparent than ever before!
Unfortunately, not all of the local officials I have met with have embraced the idea of posting their check registers online, which brings me to the point of this community newspaper column:  Several local candidates have called me to ask questions about this transparency initiative, questions about how much effort is involved and how costly it is. (I confirm for them that it is neither costly nor time-consuming, which is the answer they are looking for.)
They hope to use it as a campaign issue, and I encourage them to do so.
Find out if your town, county and school district posts a detailed list of their expenditures somewhere on the Web. If they don’t, ask them why not. And when one of these candidates comes knocking on your door asking for your vote, ask whether they’ll put the check register online if they’re elected.
It’s not government’s money, it’s the taxpayers’ money -- and it is simply a matter of courtesy to let them see how that money is spent.