SC Comptroller General Has an Answer for Transparency Skeptics

South Carolina Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom is taking on the skeptics:

The Comptroller General, who worked with Gov. Mark Sanford to create an online searchable database for government expenditures, addressed a recently released fiscal note for a bill pending in the legislature that would mandate the online posting of government expenditure information for agencies and localities currently not required to disclose their spending online.

Writing for for the Greenville News, he explains:

"Agency compliance with any additional online data posting required by the proposed legislation could be implemented in most cases without costing the taxpayers a dime. Yet a recently released "fiscal impact statement" obtained by the General Assembly dramatically overstates the cost of implementing this proposal."

Eckstrom points out that most agencies are already complying with the proposed law - whether they know it or not:

"The majority of state agencies already report their finances to my office for me to process their check payments and in turn I summarize and electronically post their spending information on the state Web site. The entire program costs taxpayers nothing."

Take that, transparency opponents! Now, let's get this law passed, shall we?

If you are in South Carolina, contact your legislators (house; senate)and urge them to support S. 1144 , the Truth in Spending Act.