Government should be Transparent
Government should be Participatory
Government should be Collaborative
Transparency aids public trust by ensuring officials serve the public good, supports accountability, prevents corruption, and improves governance by making operations, decisions, and finances open to scrutiny, empowering citizens to participate, and promoting more effective policy through informed public feedback. It allows citizens to monitor how tax dollars are spent and how decisions are made, thereby reducing corruption and preventing the abuse of power.
Multiple acts promote transparency of Wisconsin Government:
- Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (1946) – Public oversees government.
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (1967) – Establishing a formal access mechanism.
- U.S. General Services Administration – U.S. Open Government Initiative (2009)
- 2013 Executive Order – Open Data Policy
- OPEN Government Data Act (2018) – Strengthen data access, security, and governance.
Wisconsin has multiple offices that offer records for transparency of government:
- Wisconsin DOJ Office of Open Government
- Wisconsin Transparency Project
- Open Government Office – Office of the Secretary of State
Digitized documents are readily available online. Open records of government can be studied by citizens to monitor actions of officials. Records provide information for conversations, forming complaints or being used in a court of law for legal matters. Additional websites serve open government beyond the following:
- National Conference of State Legislature (NCSL) – Foundation for State Legislatures (1982)
- GovInfo.gov -All three branches of government
- Data.gov – Launched making data machine-readable in 2009
- DataFoundation.org -Open Government Data Act
- Federal Depository Libraries
- FBI Records – The Vault
- FOIA.gov (Freedom of Information Act)
- Government as a Platform
- Government Publishing Office
Many efforts support transparency in addition to the following: