Maryland Scores D for Transparency

Accountability, access to information need improvement

Maryland scored a D on the latest state report card, issued by the Center for Public Integrity today.

“This report card looks at the fundamental issues of ethics and access to information, transparency, and accountability to the people – it is government 101,” said Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, executive director of Common Cause Maryland.  “While Maryland is making progress on these fronts, there is much more work to be done.”

Common Cause Maryland noted that some recent improvements to the state’s transparency laws – such as the 2015 legislation that updated the Public Information Act – are not factored into the current score.

“We have the tools to make government work better and be more responsive. We hope that our legislators will take this scorecard as a call to action and continue to pass reforms that will improve transparency, whether that means guaranteeing public access to public documents, ensuring all public meetings are open, or eliminating loopholes that undermine our procurement process.”

The case study accompanying the report calls out the bungled Health Exchange roll out, noting that the combination of weak procurement rules and lack of transparency created the disaster.

Common Cause Maryland served as a peer reviewer for the report. The full report can be found here >>

 

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