County website again wins top transparency honor By KEVIN P. CRAVER - [email protected] NW Herald Created: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 A national transparency organization has bestowed McHenry County’s website its top honor for the third consecutive year. Sunshine Review gave the website a “Sunny Award,” or an “A” rating for the amount of information it contains. This is the third consecutive year since the organization created the award for government websites four years ago that the county’s website earned the top rating. The county is one of 19 recipients in Illinois and two in McHenry County – the website for the village of Barrington Hills also received a top rating. “I think we have showed as a County Board the dedication and the commitment of wanting to be transparent and wanting public access to any and all of their information, because it is the people’s information – it is not the government’s,” said County Board Chairwoman Tina Hill, R-Woodstock. The Sunny Awards are bestowed during Sunshine Week, a weeklong observance every March highlighting the need for open, transparent and accountable government. Of 1,000 qualifying websites nationwide, Sunshine Review bestowed “A” ratings on 247 of them. A Sunny Award means the website met all 10 of Sunshine Review’s criteria for posting budgets, meeting times and minutes, information on elected and employed officials, building permits and zoning, audits, contracts, lobbying, taxes and other public records. The websites for the governments of all five collar counties – McHenry, Lake, Kane, DuPage and Will – won Sunny Awards. DuPage and Lake counties have won Sunny Awards for all four years. Some awards are bestowed to shame governments into doing better. The Society of Professional Journalists annually bestows its “Black Hole Award” to “honor the most flagrant violations of the public’s right to know.” On the net Sunshine Review, a national pro-transparency organization, bestowed its top honor for government websites this year on the websites for McHenry County government and the Village of Barrington Hills. You can visit McHenry County's website at www.co.mchenry.il.us, the Village of Barrington Hills at www.barringtonhills-il.gov, and visit the Sunshine Review website at www.sunshinereview.org. # # # Evaluation of Illinois city websites Below is a chart evaluating the transparency efforts of Illinois city websites. [edit]Reading the chart In the chart below: means that information is included on the government website means that the information was not provided on the government website means that information was partially provided Check the Sunshine Review page about each City for more detailed information about what information is available on the City website, along with recommendations SR users have made for positive changes. See sample transparency legislation at the Sunshine Standard [edit]Conclusions chart [edit]2012 The chart below encompasses the grades for the five largest cities and the capital of Illinois, which averaged a "B" website transparency grade. Permits/ Budget? Meetings? Elected officials? Admin. Officials? Audits? Contracts? Lobbying? Public records? Taxes? Zoning? 6 5 6 5 6 3 3 1 3 5 0 1 0 1 0 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 4 1 1 Comparison chart Admin. Permits/ City Grades Budget Meetings Elected Officials Audits Contracts Lobbying Public records Taxes Officials Zoning Aurora, Illinois B- Chicago, Illinois B Joliet, Illinois C Naperville, Illinois A+ Rockford, Illinois C Springfield, Illinois B- [edit]Comparison of all Illinois city websites Elected Admin. Permits/ Public City Grades Budget Meetings Audits Contracts Lobbying Taxes Officials Officials Zoning records Aurora, Illinois B- Barrington, Illinois B Carbondale, Illinois A+ Chicago, Illinois B Joliet, Illinois C Lyons, Illinois F Naperville, Illinois A+ Rockford, Illinois C Springfield, Illinois B- Elected Admin. Permits/ Public City Grades Budget Meetings Audits Contracts Lobbying Taxes Officials Officials Zoning records Test Page C Village of Barrington Hills, A- Illinois Wilmette, Illinois A+ [edit]Correcting errors If you discover an error in this chart or on one of the articles about a Illinois city, you can correct it immediately or report the error. Read more: http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Evaluation_of_Illinois_city_websites#ixzz2OZKScGZL .