Tyler Recognized for Transparency
Posted/updated on: May 13, 2011 at 12:39 pm
TYLER — For the second time, Texas Comptroller Susan Combs recognized the City of Tyler with a Gold Leadership Circle Award for transparency in local government. The Comptrollers Leadership Circle program recognizes local governments across Texas striving to meet a high standard for financial transparency online. Transparency has been a priority for me personally during my two terms as Mayor of Tyler, said Tyler Mayor Barbara Bass. Tyler has made several changes to ensure financial information is readily available to citizens via our web site. Our goal is to communicate and operate in a way that is open and accessible to our community.
Officials say the Comptrollers office is spotlighting local governments that have opened their books to the public in order to provide a clear picture of spending and to share information in a user-friendly format that lets taxpayers easily drill down for more information. According to city press materials, the Gold designation in the Leadership Circle highlights local governments that set the bar for financial transparency, open their books to the public and set a strong example for other governmental entities to follow. The Silver designation encourages entities making continued progress toward achieving financial transparency, while Bronze inspires those just beginning their efforts and taking the first steps toward achieving financial transparency.
Following the recognition in 2009, Tyler continued to look for ways to enhance transparency, according to city officials. Officials say additional enhancements were made to the City web page to facilitate accessibility of the financial information. A navigation button was added to our main directory for Transparency, added Bass. This link takes you to a page that houses all of the financial information available at the touch of a button. We also added even more data that our citizens may want to review.
The review for the award accounts for financial reports, budgets and check registers available online. The process also checks for financial transparency features including budgets posted online for the current fiscal year, details within the check register, ease of access to the documents; instructions on how to submit a public information request, and the availability of contact information for current locally elected officials.
The governments and school districts in Tyler and Smith County are doing a great job in giving citizens the transparency in government they expect by showing that opening the window on local government is not only essential, its rather easy to do, Comptroller Susan Combs said. I applaud their leadership in transparency and the example they have set for others in Texas. Taxpayers want to know theyre getting the bang for their tax bucks. Transparency engages and empowers citizens, holds government accountable and saves taxpayer dollars.
