Checks and Balances
June 16th, 2008
When Gotham Gazette’s Courtney Gross began looking into the City Council’s capital budget for the story that appears today, she asked for an electronic copy of the document. To our surprise, council officials told her one does not exist, forcing anyone who wants to see how the council spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars to pour through 212 pages.
Not very transparent.
In today’s Sun, Eric Singer, an investment advisor, offers a proposal to make city spending more open to public scrutiny: posting the city government’s check registry on-line. “Imagine the opportunity for self-awareness on the part of New York City if all expenditures, including those as little as $43, were on the Web for anyone to review,” Singer writes. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he continues, “should implement this quickly, taking advantage of the public outrage in response to the slush fund scandal, and ask a chastened City Council to join him in supporting a city run more openly and honestly.”
By Gail Robinson on June 16, 2008, 8:38 amIn category: Gotham City, Public Finance | No Comments »



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