St. Louis, Olmsted counties outshine metro for Web site transparency

The sun shines more brightly in St. Louis and Olmsted counties than in any of the seven counties in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, according to a recently completed nationwide evaluation of county Web sites by a group that advocates for transparency in government.

The Sunshine Review recently completed a 10-point evaluation of Web access to county government information for all 3,140 counties across the United States.

One factoid: Among Minnesota’s 87 counties, only 23 make their budgets available via the Internet.

St. Louis County, which includes the city of Duluth, ranks highest in the state. All that’s lacking from the St. Louis County Web site, according to the study, is information about permits and zoning (a single criterion) and lobbying. The county is the only one in the state to offer information in all four of these often-overlooked areas: audits, contracts, public records and taxes.

Still, the northeastern Minnesota county (the state’s largest in area) is a surprising title-holder, given recent complaints about efforts to ban a watchdog group from videotaping public meetings.

Olmsted County, which includes the city of Rochester, scored a close second. Its county Web site’s gaps are in lobbying data and public records, with partial credit for providing information about public meetings.

By contrast, each of the Twin Cities’ metro-area counties met only four to six of Sunshine Review’s 10 criteria: Anoka (5), Carver (4), Dakota (4), Hennepin (6), Ramsey (6), Scott (5) and Washington (5).

Sunshine Review has set its sights next on completing evaluations for city government Web sites across the country. So far, 51 Minnesota cities’ Web sites have been examined.

The studies are done by wiki, meaning anyone with Web access can contribute.

Incidentally, a cursory Minnesota Independent evaluation of the mock Web site for the fictional city of Pawnee, Ind., using Sunshine Review’s transparency checklist, suggests a failing grade. The site was created as a subtle promotion for NBC’s new local-government satire, “Parks and Recreation,” which premieres Thursday.