Transparency News 5/26/17

Friday, May 26, 2017



State and Local Stories

A happy and safe Memorial Day Weekend to you all. Transparency News will return May 30.

Calls reporting fraud, waste and abuse to an anonymous state hotline more than doubled earlier this year. The Virginia Office of the State Inspector General saw a surge in calls during the third quarter of the fiscal year, which led to a "significant increase" in state agency investigations, according to a news release. During the third quarter – which lasts January through March – the fraud hotline received 462 calls. That's a nearly 140 percent increase from the previous quarter, during which there were 193 calls. Ensuing investigations also jumped between second and third quarters, from 118 to 208.
Virginian-Pilot

The state's IT agency closed out its internal auditing division in April, laying off all three team members to meet a budget cut target, then offering them other agency positions. The move is an eyebrow raiser, particularly as the Virginia Information Technologies Agency tries to disentangle the state from a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar IT contract with Northrop Grumman. It certainly was a concern for the anonymous tipster who reached out to the Daily Press. But it's not a worry for state legislators and others keeping an eye on the agency during that disentanglement process, in part because of the outside attention that process has brought.
Daily Press


National Stories
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The University of North Carolina has denied a public records request made by WBTV citing an exemption that only applies to law enforcement agencies. WBTV requested records from Jeff Welty, a professor at the UNC School of Government, in mid-May. Welty responded to the request indicating that he would willingly produce responsive records. “I need to run this by our public records point person,” Welty said in an email response. “I am not aware of any basis for doing anything other than providing any responsive documents that I may have, but we have a process for such things that I need to follow.” A week later, the UNC Chapel Hill public records office reversed course and said it would not provide the records responsive to WBTV’s request. The university cited a provision of the North Carolina Public Records Act that allows certain records created and maintained by law enforcement agencies to be exempt from being made public. But Jonathan Jones, an attorney who specializes in public records law as director of the North Carolina Sunshine Center, said the university cannot withhold records under the investigative exemption because it is not a law enforcement agency.
WBTV

Is there something particularly American about leaking? Some national allergy to protecting government secrets? Yes, in fact, there is. And whether you denounce that as a dangerous trait or accept it as an underpinning of democracy, it is unlikely to change, according to a range of former officials and students of government secrecy.
New York Times

What is good government and which cities practice it? Those are the questions driving a new annual report of U.S. cities. For the first time ever, the nonprofit Living Cities partnered with Governing to study how cities measure up to their definition of a high-performing government. The authors of the study, which is called "Equipt to Innovate," hope it will help the best ideas and practices spread. The report defines a city as high-performing if it's dynamically planned, broadly partnered, resident-involved, race-informed (Richmond gets a nod), smartly resourced (Virginia Beach gets a nod), employee-engaged and data-driven. It sheds light on what local officials think their organizations do well and where they believe they need to improve.
Governing