Lake County Government Website Receives "Sunny Award" for good Website Transparency

Tavares, FL - March 13, 2012

This is National Sunshine Week, and Lake County received an award for how the County website provided information to improve "transparency" over local government actions.

Congratulations to Lake County, FL Government for receiving the "Sunny Award" from Sunshine Review, a journal on government transparency located in the Washington D.C area. They ranked 6000 government websites and only 214 received the Sunny Award, and Lake County's website was one.  Lake County's website was scored an "A" transparency grade on Sunshine Review's Transparency Checklist. It goes to show, that Lake County will do anything to keep me from providing public input at a Board meeting!!    I notice that their winners list also included many School Districts, including nearby Orange County.

Here is the website page listing all 214 "A" Sunny Award winners, including Lake County:

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/2012_Sunny_Awards  

Here is the webpage describing the "Transparency Checklist" and method used to determine Sunny Awards and rankings.  They have checklists for cities, countys, school districts & state agencies:

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Transparency_checklist 

However, I couldn't help notice that one of the checklist items isn't followed much at Lake County.  They post financial audits, but not performance audits and there are no evaluations of specific agencies unless you know where to loo, (in my opinion).  But, they clearly met most of the other categories on the checklist except this one (my opinion):

Audits (Financial/Performance)

If the county conducts financial and management audits to ensure that it is operating in accordance with the highest standards of financial and management competence and integrity:

• Copies of performance and financial audits should be posted on the county's website.
• Routine financial audits should be posted online.
• Evaluations of the performance of any specific agencies or commissions should be posted online.

Here is the letter the County received, which was read at today's Lake County Board meeting:

Download Gray - Letter from Sunshine Review

 

More About Sunshine Review

We advocate proactive disclosure of information on government websites.

Mission

Sunshine Review promotes proactive disclosure of information on government websites.

To accomplish this, we rate government websites based on our transparency checklist, demanding that government information be open and available to everyone.

Company Overview

Sunshine Review is about state and local government transparency, engaged citizens, and holding government officials accountable. The Sunshine Review wiki collects and shares information on state and local transparency using a 10-point Transparency Checklist to evaluate 6,000 state and local government websites. Sunshine Review is a non-profit that collaborates with individuals and organizations across America to promote state and local transparency.

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