Transparency - Sort Of

Here is a Kentucky government web site that offers a glimpse, sort of a looking through the glass darkly view, where your tax dollars are going.

While not as transparent as we would like, the Legislative Research Commission offers some transparency to state government spending. The Government Contract Review Committee shows us who gets some of our tax dollars.

All of the information is on contracts and amendments that have been reviewed and approved by the committee for payment. So we get to see where the money went, not where it’s going.

Here are the bigger ticket items from May 2008:

MEDICAID SERVICES, DEPARTMENT FOR

16. 0800007172

Health Care Excel Incorporated
2629 Waterfront Parkway
Indianapolis, IN 46214

Auditing - $2,694,084.00

Provide for compliance with the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 including, but not limited to, three year general audits by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), as well as CMS focused reviews, provide technical and educational support to identify fraud, rule out potential erroneous/fraudulent billing through clinical reviews and audits, and identify opportunities for system payment edits and audits.

TRANSPORTATION CABINET

21. 0800007385

JL Lee Engineering LLC
100 North Main Street, Suite 218
Lawrenceburg, KY 40342

Engineering - $2,000,000.00

Provide Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) based site assessments, evaluations, characterizations and remediation plans and control compliance reviews including sampling, reporting, remediation and other environmental concerns.

22. 0800007413

Corradino Group First Trust Center
200 South Fifth Street, Suite 300N
Louisville, KY 40202

Engineering - $2,000,000.00

Provide Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) based site assessments, evaluations, characterizations and remediation plans and control compliance reviews for Kentucky Underground Storage Tank regulations and the Clean Water Act including sampling, reporting, remediation and other environmental concerns.

23. 0800007414

Linebach Funkhouser Incorporated
114 Fairfax Avenue
Louisville, KY 40207

Engineering - $2,000,000.00

Provide Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) based site assessments, evaluations, characterizations and remediation plans and control compliance reviews for Kentucky Underground Storage Tank regulations and the Clean Water Act including sampling, reporting, remediation and other environmental concerns.

Now, true transparency in government would let us see these contracts before they get the legislative rubber stamp.

Also here’s an idea:

Could we cross reference the Contributor Information from the Registry of Election Finance, the Corporate Information from the Secretary of State with the database containing the above information?

Now that would be a fun site.

Electronic Transparency

Another thought on putting a little electronic transparency in state government. How about this as a start?

Let the public see the purchases made on state Procurement Cards.

Procurement Cards, or ProCards are government issued credit cards. I for one would like to see what is being bought with these little pieces of plastic.

Now the cards will be rejected if someone tries to buy any of the following.

Airlines
Automobile/Vehicle Rental
Hotels and Motels
Eating Places, Restaurants
Bars, Cocktail Lounges, Discotheques, Nightclubs, and Taverns – Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)
Quick Payment Service – Fast-Food Restaurants
Package Stores, Beer, Wine, Liquor
Financial Institutions
Security Brokers/Dealers
Insurance Sales and Underwriting
Insurance Premiums
Insurance (Not elsewhere classified)
Lodging

So I couldn’t pay for a trip to Europe with this card, but I bet I could buy jewelry, furniture, clothes, a big screen TV (I wonder if David Williams has one of these?)

The rules say I can’t rent a car, but could I buy one?

I think the public would probably get a little bent out of shape if they found a state office furnished with solid cherry furniture or antiques.

I would love to trip through these records.

Force or Farce?

Let’s give Steve Beshear credit for being able to steal a good idea even if it comes from a Right Wing Nut state legislator.

Citing the need for state government to exercise openness in how it conducts business, Gov. Steve Beshear today signed an executive order creating an eTransparency Task Force. Under the executive order, the group will bring recommendations to the governor on the creation and implementation of a “one-stop” information access tool that will include, among other things, providing information about state expenditures and state programs.

Does the following sound familiar?

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 42 to require the Finance and Administration Cabinet to create a searchable Web site to provide certain information on the expenditure of state funds; provide that the new sections shall be known as the "Taxpayer Transparency Act of 2008."

Two questions:

If this is such a great idea, I think it is, then why did it die in the legislature and who killed it? I don’t know why this died, other than most of our legislators would know a good idea if it bit them in the ass, but the guy that killed this puppy was Mike Cherry.

Cherry is the Democratic Legislator from Princeton, Kentucky and the chairman of the House State Government Committee where this bill died.

So once again the General Assembly fumbles the ball.

But I’m not so sure the Task Force will do much more than steam around in the fog and accomplish nothing.

Remember, the idea here is to recommend how to make state records accessible on the Internet. Now, this sort of thing is an unnatural act for most politicians and bureaucrats.

Take a look at the membership of the Task Force.

Chair – Secretary of Finance and Administration Cabinet, Jonathan Miller;
Vice Chairs – The Honorable Todd Hollenbach, Jr., State Treasurer, and The Honorable Crit Luallen, Auditor of Public Accounts;
The Honorable Jack Conway, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, or his designee;
The Honorable Richie Farmer, Commissioner of the Department of Agriculture, or his designee;
The Honorable Trey Grayson, Secretary of State, or his designee;
The State Controller or designee;
The State Budget Director or designee;
The State Librarian or designee;
The Executive Director of the Kentucky Broadcasters Association or designee;
The Executive Director of the Kentucky Press Association or designee;
The Commissioner of the Commonwealth Office of Technology;
The Executive Director of the Office of Legal Services for Finance and Technology, Finance and Administration Cabinet;
The President of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce;
The Executive Director of the Kentucky Association of State Employees;
The Executive Director of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth; and
The Executive Director of Common Cause of Kentucky.

So, we start with 6 politicians that, to put it kindly, are pretty computer challenged.

Five of the remaining eleven members are state bureaucrats, of which only one the Commissioner of the Commonwealth Office of Technology hopefully will know what the issues are surrounding the task force’s job. Of course his job reports directly to the Chairman of the Task Force, which always fosters an open public discussion of issues.

Two members are from the main stream media. Notice they left the bloggers out, it must be a typo. While the media types may be tech savvy they are usually averse to actually working to get a story so we can’t expect a lot of effort here.

That leaves us with a business representative, I’m sure they will want all the contracts and spending records opened to public inspection.

The union representative and a couple of liberal human rights groups finish out the make-up of the Task-Force.

Oh, one final thing, eight of the appointees don’t ever have to show up. They can just designate whoever is in the office and not doing anything to go to the meetings, that is what is usually meant by “designee”.

This is a great idea, but I don’t see much chance of it working.

Orwell Would Be Proud

A Tip of the Hat to the Alpha Geek for these gems.

“You are not paranoid if they are out to get you.” Col. Frank Burns

Microsoft Gives Backdoor to Law Enforcement -- Well, Not Really

Admit it. You always thought Microsoft had put a backdoor into its operating system to allow law enforcement agents to worm their way into your computer.

Now the proof is here. At least that's how some readers are interpreting a story out yesterday about a forensic tool that Microsoft is providing crime-stoppers to help them extract evidence from computers seized at crime scenes.

Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime

Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that may have been used in crimes.

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.

FBI seeks law forcing ISPs to retain data

The United States' top cop told a Congressional committee this week that law enforcement would benefit from a law forcing Internet service providers to hold onto customer data longer.

In comments before the House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III told members that Internet service providers (ISPs) should be required to retain the records of what customers did online for longer periods of time. He suggested that records be kept for a minimum of two years, according to a CNET News.com report.