The Illinois Policy Institute provides a number of different tools for citizens to use to make their government more transparent and accountable to the citizens and taxpayers.
- Local Transparency Project: Big advancements in transparency and lots of media attention has been generated by this project. Liberty Leaders can use this tool to audit their local government agency and work with elected officials and administrators to implement this comprehensive 10-Point Transparency Checklist.
- Transparency Pledge: Liberty Leaders can present the Illinois Policy Institute’s pledge to elected officials and candidates running for office. This allows Liberty Leaders to identify individuals who are committed to comprehensive transparency reforms and hold them accountable to their pledge in the future. So far over 160 candidates and elected officials in Illinois have signed.
- Filing a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA): The Freedom of Information Act is the single most important tool a Liberty Leader has at their disposal to obtain information from their government when that agency isn’t proactively providing that information online. The Freedom of Information act can be used to obtain documents such as budgets, audits, board packets, meeting minutes, salary & benefit information, labor contracts, contracts with outside vendors, lobbying, and more.
- IllinoisOpenGov.org: This website gives Illinois taxpayers an unbiased look at raw spending data, provided directly from official government sources, and gives Illinois citizens a tool for researching, analyzing, comparing and sharing government spending data. 2008 State Employee Payroll, and Checks to Businesses & People, and 2009 State Retiree Pensions now online and searchable with IllinoisOpenGov.org.