Here's a small step for government transparency: Smith County plans to put its general fund and road-and-bridge department check registers online. The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports that Smith County will be the second of Texas' 254 counties to do this, following the lead of Collin County, and the checks should be up on the county Web site within 30 days.

The paper reports that the county auditor says redacting personal information, such as account numbers, will resolve privacy concerns. From the story:

"I think the citizens deserve to have open access to records and see where the money is going," Commissioner JoAnn Fleming said after the meeting adjourned. "There is no more openness than to have your checkbook open where everybody can see it."

There are other government agencies putting their check registers online in Texas. Two hundred eighty-eight school systems in Texas have their registers on the Web now, according to conservative educational activist Peyton Wolcott, who keeps a national tally on her Web site. (In the Houston area, she lists the school districts for Houston, Galveston, Dickinson, Katy, Tomball and Pearland, to name a few -- and the Texas Education Agency also has theirs online.) But there's a catch: Posting those check registers allows school districts to get around Gov. Rick Perry's order to spend at least 65 of their dough on instruction-only funds and not for administration.