The
Sunshine Review today announced
today that Knox County is one of only three Tennessee governments to
win a “Sunny Award,” something that honors “the most
transparent government websites in the nation,” according to the spin
release.
The Virginia-based nonprofit, which
analyzes government transparency, looked over more than 1,000
qualifying government websites and graded each one on a 10-point
transparency checklist. Editors looked at available content,
including budgets, meetings, lobby, financial audits, contracst,
academic performance, public records and taxes. The winners of the
fourth annual award received an “A” grade.
The top dogs were Florida (25),
Virginia (19), Illinois (19), California (12), Georgia (12), Kansas
(11), Oklahoma (10) and Colorado (9). Click
right smack here for the
full list, and
right smack here for the Knox County, which received
an “A-.”
This is kind of funny considering the Metro Pulse
slammed the county's website last week (although some of the reasons were kind of stupid, but whatever).
On a side note, Knox County was apparently docked
because
the website didn't provide information on taxpayer funded
lobbying. It also didn't include a list of employed lobbyists, blah,
blah, blah.
That's probably because the county
doesn't have a lobbyist, Oh well, so much for accuracy.
Shelby and Wilson counties also each
scored an A-.
