In The Spotlight: Public Integrity



State Integrity 2015

Arizona gets D grade in 2015 State Integrity Investigation

Scandals spur little change

By Evan Wyloge 12:01 am, November 9, 2015 Updated: 3:04 pm, November 13, 2015

Gaps in government transparency and accountability in Arizona over the past few years are not hard to find.
Read entire report here

Almost across the board, Arizona agencies consistently fail to follow key principles for “opening up” government data, which the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog group, circulated in 2010 as a policy prescription to make information “open and accessible to the public.”

 

 

Your MesaZona blogger, transplanted here in The New Urban DTMesa as a refugee from the New York City World Trade Center attacks after the world-shattering events called 911/September 11, 2001 is a PTSD survivor, now enjoying the great State of Arizona's political climate [we use cool air-conditioning to handle the weather].
It is a truly fertile state-of-mind to plow into in all directions, including politics on both the state and local levels and public integrity . . . so here we get into it.
"In late 2013, stacks of Child Protective Services files were found dumped in an alley in Phoenix, shedding light on an agency in meltdown. The 2014 Arizona elections saw unprecedented "dark money" spending, mostly going toward electing the governor and state utility regulators. And in early 2015, Arizona’s newly inaugurated governor, Doug Ducey, tried to establish a state inspector general, but failed after the plan was criticized harshly for creating a “secret police” that would operate with little transparency and answer only to the governor.
The Copper State ranked a little above average in a new State Integrity Investigation, a data-driven assessment of government accountability and transparency in all 50 states by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity. Arizona received an overall score of 64 – a D grade – and ranked tied for 22nd among all the states."
The latest report card shows strength, particularly in relation to other states, in a couple of categories: judicial accountability, where Arizona ranks 2nd in the nation with a score of 77 (C+), and internal auditing, where the state tied for 4th with a score of 87 (B+).
But Arizona earned an F in six of the 13 categories, getting failing grades in lobbying oversight, pension management, ethics enforcement, executive accountability, civil service protections and access to information.
Almost across the board, Arizona agencies consistently fail to follow key principles for “opening up” government data, which the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog group, circulated in 2010 as a policy prescription to make information “open and accessible to the public.”
These include adherence to ideas like “primacy” — in which the government makes data available in its primary or most original form possible, with details on how that data was collected. That would apply to master files and raw data, not merely a summary file or descriptions of what is contained in that master file. This would enable the public to verify that the information was collected properly and recorded accurately.
Kathryn Marquoit, Arizona’s assistant ombudsman for public access, offers guidance and dispute resolution when there’s disagreement over how public records are being handled. She said original files fall squarely into the state’s public records laws.
“If a document exists, the public has a right to see the entire document or a redacted version,” she said. “I don’t think a summary is an acceptable substitute.”
Another common shortcoming involves data files that cannot be loaded into spreadsheet software, including “snapshot” versions of original spreadsheets captured in PDF files, which cannot be manipulated. Arizona agencies have expressed concern that data can be edited or altered if original data files are made available to the public.

 

 

 

 

The State Integrity Investigation is a comprehensive assessment of state government accountability and transparency done in partnership with Global Integrity.