House Bill 5522 would require local governments and school districts in Illinois to maintain websites with links to vital public information such as budgets, expenditures and officials’ names and numbers.

In November, 13 of 53 Corruption Watch stories were related to policies and actions of criminal-justice authorities in Illinois.

Unfortunately for taxpayers, June was a groundbreaking month for corruption in Illinois. In June alone, there were reports of 85 corruption-related stories in the state. Some of the record-breaking highlights include the following: For the first time in 33 years, the Illinois Legislative Audit Commission exercised its subpoena powers in the issuance of a subpoena...

The Illinois Policy Institute awarded the city of Evanston a Sunshine Award at the city’s Jan. 13 board meeting. By posting everything on the Illinois Policy Institute’s 10-Point Transparency Checklist, Evanston recently became the sixth local taxing body in Illinois to garner a perfect transparency score, joining Kane County, Hanover Township, Orland Park, Lombard and...

Nice list Many local taxing bodies in Illinois took a giant leap forward in 2013 when it comes to improving online transparency. And many local officials worked with the Illinois Policy Institute to meet our online transparency standards, per the 10-Point Transparency Checklist. Our report “Obstructed views: Illinois’ 102 county online transparency audit” showed that...

A new report looking at the state’s 25 largest municipalities shows a wide disparity in citizens’ access to basic government information online from community to community. In places such as Evanston, Skokie and Orland Park, citizens have excellent access to basic financial and participatory information online, but the same isn’t true in many other areas....

by Brian Costin Residents of Oak Lawn may soon get a much-needed dose of government transparency. Sandra Bury was recently sworn in as the new Mayor of Oak Lawn, a village in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. As one of her first priorities in office, Bury intends to implement the Illinois Policy Institute’s 10-Point Transparency Checklist,...

Institute works with Metra to improve government transparency as a way to increase accountability and to deter public corruption.