The state's chief technology officer said he welcomed the critique and can make more authentic records available online.
Overall, Utah scored sixth among states for making the most of its government Web sites to post information on everything from death certificates to lawmakers' political contributions, according to the survey by three media organizations.
Texas came in first, followed by New Jersey, Kentucky, North Carolina and New York.
The states were ranked by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Gov. Jon Huntsman has taken to calling Utah the Digital State. It was ranked first in the nation by the Center for Digital Government in a 2008 Best of the Web competition.
Utah also won first place in Brown University's 2005 survey of state and federal Web sites. It has won other online awards, and when Huntsman switched most state agencies to a four-day workweek last year, he vowed to put even more "e-government" services online.
"Some Utahns may be surprised to know that more than 850 government services now can be found online -- which is why we have been recognized as the Number One state in the country for Digital Government," Huntsman said in his State of the State address Jan. 27.
Yet lost in the accolades for improving online services is delivering actual government records online, said Joel Campbell, a former journalist who teaches at Brigham Young University in Provo.
"Utah has been a leader in e-government. You can pay your taxes and renew your car registration online. But that doesn't promote online access to documents," he said.
For starters, Utah could post the state budget and expenditures online, said Campbell, a legislative monitor for the Utah Press Association, which represents newspaper publishers. Huntsman spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley said the state is working on that.
Campbell said state agencies also should make it easy for people to file public-records requests online by providing clear information, links and application forms on the home pages of agency Web sites. And local governments and school districts lag significantly on online access, he said. Campbell is an unpaid consultant for Salt Lake City's efforts to improve online transparency.
The Sunshine Week survey of state government Web sites found that even as more government records are being posted online, some of the most important information is being left off-line. In some cases governments are charging taxpayers to access records that they already paid for, such as business-registration records in Utah. Officials say the $2-a-search fee goes to a vendor to cover processing costs.
Campbell reserved his biggest criticism for this fee, saying it violates Utah's open-records act, which generally makes documents available at no charge. Most states don't charge for the records.
Utah also fails to post reports of environmental and dumping violations. Another agency posts quarterly lists of disciplined doctors but withholds the detailed, narrative reports on acts of misconduct. Also missing are government inspection reports on hospitals, nursing homes and child-care centers.
Take bridge safety records, for another example. The Utah Department of Transportation operates a generally active Web site but provides "only scant information" on bridge inspections "in un-searchable, aggregate form, based on 2-3 year old data," the survey noted.
UDOT claims to offer information on purchase contracts, but getting details can frustrating.
For example, the survey found, several clicks from UDOT's home page lead to Contract No. 089178, a pact for public-relations services offered by Salt Lake City-based Letter23 LLC. But the contract itself, a pdf file, doesn't download properly. An Adobe Reader error message says the file has been damaged.
Utah's legislative auditor general was singled out for having "probably one of the easiest Web sites to navigate in Utah state government." It provides performance audits of state government that are linked plainly on the home page, the day they are released.
But try finding online records of disciplinary actions taken against Utah lawyers. You won't find it on the Web site of the Utah State Bar Association. The state court system charges for access to its online dockets, which could show some actions taken against individual lawyers. But nobody maintains a master list of disciplined lawyers, and the court dockets provide only sparse information.
Stephen Fletcher, the state's chief technology officer, said he can use the critique to bring more and better organized information to the government Web sites.
"State agencies don't always know what information is most important for people," Fletcher said. "Everybody talks about transparency. We just want to know what is it we should provide."
On the whole, Utah fared well in the survey for online access, even though much of it leaves out original documents.
"I was pleasantly surprised to see there were more records available than I previously was aware of, in 16 of 20 categories," said Linda Petersen, president of the Utah Foundation for Open Government and an editor for a group of weekly newspapers.
On the Net:
- Utah state government: www.utah.gov
- Utah's Legislative Auditor General: http://le.state.ut.us/audit/olag.htm
- Utah courts: www.utcourts.gov
- Utah state government performance reports: www.performance.utah.gov
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Paul Foy
Quelle/Source: Daily Herald, 16.03.2009
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