Texas Rising February 2010

Texas Comptroller
Leadership Circle

Shining a Light
on Transparency

Leadership Circle recognizes local government efforts

by Tracey Lamphere

Financial transparency among local governments isn’t simply about checking off a box on a to-do list. It’s an ongoing process that demands continual improvement.


Texas Comptroller Susan Combs presents a Leadership Circle Gold award to Tyler City Councilman Charles Alworth.

Local Government

Leadership Circle

It’s easy for local governments to apply for the Comptroller’s Leadership Circle, which recognizes financial transparency efforts. Local entities can use the downloadable form, to self-score how their transparency efforts measure up. They receive points for posting budgets, financial reports and check registers online. Extra points are awarded for additional features such as using graphs or illustrations to make the information easier to understand or providing easy access to documents.

After local entities complete and submit the assessment, Local Government Assistance staff members will award successful applicants one of three designations:

  • Gold – to those who are setting the bar in transparency
  • Silver – to those who are making continued progress
  • Bronze – to those who are just beginning their transparency efforts

The entity will receive a digital “Texas Comptroller Leadership Circle” seal to display on its Web site. It will also be featured on the Comptroller’s Texas Transparency Check-Up Web site. Designations are good for one year. Entities must re-submit score sheets annually to re-qualify.

To download the self-scoring sheet, to learn more about the Leadership Circle program and read a step by step guide go to the Texas Comptroller Leadership Circle page.

The Comptroller’s office Leadership Circle recognizes local governments that have either taken their first steps toward, made strides to meet, or have exceeded transparency standards. (See sidebar for award categories and scoring information).

The program, which launched in December 2009, named the city of Tyler, Tyler Independent School District (ISD), Lindale ISD, Arp ISD, Chapel Hill ISD and Smith County as the first recipients of the Comptroller’s Leadership Circle designation for opening their books to the public and providing clear, consistent pictures of spending.

“Transparency engages and empowers citizens, holds government accountable and saves taxpayer dollars,” says Comptroller Susan Combs. Statewide transparency efforts have yielded cost savings of $51 million since 2007.

“Taxpayers want to know they’re getting the bang for their tax bucks,” Combs says. “With stimulus dollars and federal deficit sticker shock, citizens are increasingly asking ‘Where does the money go?’”

In Tyler and Smith County, officials have been answering that question for several years. Tyler’s online postings include five years of budgets and eight years of comprehensive annual financial reports. Weekly check registers were added in April 2009, making Tyler the first city among Texas’ 50 largest cities to post all three key financial documents online. Lindale and Arp school districts have just begun their transparency efforts and earned a bronze designation.

Tyler ISD began posting its check registry online in September 2009 at the request of taxpayers.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised, it’s really not that hard to post the items,” says Tosha Bjork, executive director of financial services for Tyler ISD. The district’s financial information is already in electronic form, so it only takes a few minutes each week for staff to post updates to the Web site.

“We put as much information on the Web site as possible,” Bjork says. The district recently added its annual budget book to the site, for people who want a detailed look at where the district spends its tax dollars.

Since January 2009, Smith County has posted its check register online for its major operating funds. Before posting financials online, the Smith County auditor’s office used to spend several thousand dollars printing and distributing about 100 copies of the budget each year.

“(Taxpayers) can see every decision we make,” says Joel Baker, Smith County’s judge and chief budget officer. “We are not only making the budget and financials readily available for taxpayers to view, we are saving taxpayer dollars in the process.” TR

For tips and a step-by-step guide on how to achieve local government transparency, visit the Texas Transparency Check-up site.

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