Internet greatly expands government accountability

One of government's greatest tools in offering openness and accountability to the people it serves is the Internet.

Many have put this tool to very good use in recent years.

We are light years ahead of where we were a decade ago when it comes to the number and kinds of public documents, information and services available online. All are a mere click away as you sit at home or in your office. It's nothing short of transforming in the way we do business.

That's why we'd like to see more local governments offer month-by-month spending information online. Many already offer detailed information about their annual budgets and annual audits. But a budget isn't the same as seeing how money is being spent as the year progresses.

The city of Beaufort now offers monthly accounts of financial transactions online. Beaufort County says it will do the same.

The push for transparency in spending began with an executive order from Gov. Mark Sanford in 2007. By March 2008, the state Comptroller's Office began posting spending for state Cabinet agencies online at its site. Since then, the comptroller has been pushing local governments to do the same.

Today, 12 cities and counties, including the cities of Charleston and Myrtle Beach, are listed on the comptroller's Web site, with links to their financial reports.

If posting this information is not at the top of a local government's list to do, it ought to be fairly high up, especially in these tight budget times. Now, more than ever, we need to understand how much money local governments are collecting and how much and where they are spending it.

Once the online financial reporting systems are in place, it should be easier -- and probably cheaper -- than it ever was in a paper-focused world for local governments to tell us what they're doing and for us to find out.