TOWN OF IRMO PRAISED FOR BEING FIRST TO PUT PUBLIC SPENDING ONLINE

Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom and the South Carolina Policy Council spoke with reporters Monday about a movement to create transparency in local government.

They discussed a website created by Eckstrom’s office that allows cities, towns, counties and school districts to voluntarily post their expenditures on the Internet.

“We wanted to partner with local governments to make this website available,” Eckstrom said. “My view is that to the extent that local governments can comply voluntarily with this movement to provide spending details, the better we’re all going to be.”

Eckstrom and the Policy Council praised the Town of Irmo for being the first local government in South Carolina to post online registers.

“All of this data is public information — every bit of it is supposed to be available to the public and it is the responsibility of government to provide that information,” said Policy Council President Ashley Landess. “This is just a much easier, cleaner way to do it, it’s being done all over the country, and we’re all very glad to see that it is starting to be done in South Carolina as well.”

Under current state law, citizens must go through the burden and expense of filing Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain public records.

“The Town of Irmo is very happy to be the leader in this openness, we’ve always tried to maintain an open government,” said Harvey Hoots, the Irmo Mayor Pro Tem. “I can’t understand why any government would want to do anything different.

“If you want to be open and above board to your citizenry, and remember, it’s their tax dollars that we’re spending, this is the easy way to do it.”

Columbia Mayor Bob Coble used the event to announce that the City of Columbia would also attempt to put their expenditures online. But even Coble admitted that doing so would be difficult.

“Columbia has had well-documented accounting problems over the last two years,” Coble said. “They stem from a slowness on our part to make changes in our health care benefits and problems with accounting for those health care benefits.”

Critics point out that Coble has been promising to create transparency in Columbia for years but has yet to deliver.
The City of Columbia’s website, which was scheduled to undergo a $15,000 taxpayer-funded makeover, has yet to post an online check register.

But even if the city once again falls short on its promise, Eckstrom said there are plenty of others lining up.
“We continue to work and to meet with officials from local governments all across the state,” said Eckstrom. “We have exciting developments that we’re on the verge of announcing as one after the other, local government is stepping forward and saying, ‘we want to join as well.’”