An open government advocacy group gives Wisconsin counties mixed grades for the amount of information they post online.
Sunshine Review managing editor Kristin McMurray says Wisconsin ranks 10th for counties with the most transparent websites. However, she says there's still a lot of room for improvement.
McMurray led the evaluation of all county web sites. She says most sites were very good about posting contact information for local government and elected officials. However, most fell short when it came to posting detailed information about issues such as contracts and audits.
McMurray says some government officials wrongly think people don't want access to key documents online. She says they've found people want more information; it's just that governments have not posted it yet.
Sunshine Review publishes it evaluations on a searchable Wikipedia-like Web site. McMurray says the evaluations are ongoing and people can make changes.
She says they will soon look at web usability in their evaluations as well. Those criteria included accessibility, layout, and how easy they are to search for specific information.
Among Wisconsin counties, Brown, Dane, Outagamie and Ozaukee received the highest grades. Jackson, Green, Florence and Lafayette were the worst.
AUDIO: Matt Lehman reports (MP3 :38)
