Lombard receives award for perfect score for transparency
LOMBARD, Illinois-Capping a year of effort, the Village of Lombard received the Illinois Policy Institute's Transparency Award at this past Thursday's Village Board meeting. During the award presentation, the Illinois Policy Institute's Director of Government Reform, Brian Costin, recognized the Village of Lombard for enacting the strongest government transparency policy in the state and announced that the Village website received a perfect 100% on the Institute's scoring system. Lombard is the only unit of government in DuPage County to receive a perfect score for transparency from the Institute and only the second unit of government in Illinois to do so.
"The transparency award and perfect score are a big victory for taxpayers," said Trustee Peter Breen, sponsor of the Village Transparency Policy. "The folks who put us in office want and deserve open government, and I hope our example will inspire other public officials to make their respective units of government 100% transparent."
In May, 2011, Breen introduced a Website Transparency Policy that would require placement of salary, spending, audit, and other information on the Village of Lombard website. The Board of Trustees adopted the policy in October, and the work to bring the website into compliance with the policy was completed in April of this year.
"We are proud to support this initiative for open government," said Lombard Village President, William Mueller. "The Village of Lombard has always encouraged its residents and business communities to be informed about local government and the transparency initiative helps us work toward that end," he added.
The Village's Website Transparency Policy page now includes 11 different categories of information: contact information for elected and administrative officials, Village meeting agendas and minutes, how to make a FOIA request, annual budgets, financial audits, expenditures, salary and benefit information, contracts including union contracts, lobbying contracts and expenses, taxes and fees, and application forms and procedures for building and zoning permissions. The page is listed as the first menu item on the Village of Lombard website under the "About Us" tab or can be reached at http://www.villageoflombard.org/index.aspx?nid=2632. The page also provides five years of historical information for comparison purposes, and the information is searchable for ease of use by residents.