The Texas comptroller’s office hands out awards for municipalities that make strides of some sort regarding financial transparency. Those who are deemed fit are said to be members of the office’s golden leadership circle, and ranking in that circle is based on whether budget and financial information is available online, how easy the site is to navigate, and other factors on a scoring sheet provided by the comptroller’s office. The San Antonio Express-News opines on this today.

It’s a good game to play, this ranking, if it pushes towns, cities and other entities to make public information more easily available. But there should be more to it that just slapping a checkbook online. For example, how about ranking school districts in how they comply with open records requests?

Anyone can ship faceless info into an online database without context. That’s just the start.

An equally important barometer of openness is how governments respond when pressed for specifics, often via a formal open records request. When we asked for all the bids on a contract and a copy of a contract from the Houston Independent School District recently, “Good luck,” was the response. And this is a district with a gold circle award, the top prize.

The awards were begun in December and are based on self-reported information.

“This is all applied for on a voluntary basis,” said comptroller spokesman R.J. DeSilva. “The biggest part of it is to move transparency initiatives forward on the local level and to encourage putting financial information out there.”

The awards are easy to get, he acknowledged, provided the entity does what it is supposed to do. The comptroller's office has received 229 applications for the awards and rejected just one, he said, for the website for the school district in Flour Bluff outside Corpus Christi.

And then there are the arms of the city or district that may not be so transparent.

Amarillo, for example, is lauded on the comptroller’s list, with a “silver circle,” the medium prize. But we recall a recent open records flap over the city’s downtown development nonprofit, the aptly named Downtown Amarillo. The group refused to turn over some records until the state AG’s office ruled that it must. 

The city and this group are intertwined. The city’s silver status means little when another local group tries to hide its stuff. These comptroller props are a good thing. But perhaps they can go beyond the simple act of transparency and explore the municipalities' willingness to help.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 4 p.m. Sept. 8 to reflect how many applications the comptroller's office has received and rejected.

Contact Steve Miller at 832-303-9420 or stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org.

Photo of trophies by flickr user AlaskaTeacher, used via a Creative Commons license.