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.

October saw a former Chicago Public Schools CEO plead guilty to wire fraud and several other instances of criminal charges and civil lawsuits against public officials, as well as crony deals between businesses and government.

The start of a new year always comes with resolutions for improvement, but only time will tell if they translate into effective action.

Wilmette is a fantastic example of a community going above and beyond to promote online transparency for citizens.

The village of Wilmette is a leader when it comes to online transparency of local governments in Illinois. It recently became the seventh local government in Illinois to score a perfect 100 percent on the Illinois Policy Institute’s 10-Point Transparency Checklist. With nearly 7,000 local governments in Illinois, Wilmette’s score places the village in the...

To be able to participate fully in democracy citizens need the ability to contact and interact with their elected representatives and government administrators.