Atlanta City Councilmember Felicia Moore briefed the media about her ongoing efforts to access city financial records during a briefing at the end of yesterday’s City Council’s Finance/Executive Committee meeting.
Moore has requested access to Oracle, the city’s current financial reporting system, to view all payments made by the city in the wake of controversial high-dollar vacation and sick leave payouts made to some employees. That access was denied last week in a letter from Mayor Kasim Reed, who accused Moore of “Washington-style politics” and for making a “naked political grab.”
“The information that I am asking for is the same information that other cities post online in real time,” Moore said.
She cited the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Praire Village (Kansas) and Austin (Texas). Praire Village and Austin used the same company that designed the City of Atlanta’s website. Moore said New York posts that city’s budget, revenue, total day-to-day spending, contracts and payroll information online in the public domain.
Moore also cited as an example the state of Georgia, which allows for public access online to various audits, employee salaries and employee reimbursements.
“This is public information,” Moore said. “The requests that have been made are not out of line. As an elected official, I certainly have the right to view this information without having to submit an open records request and in turn get bits and pieces of information back.”
According to the Georgia Public Interest Research Group’s report “Transparency in City Spending: Rating the Availability of Online Government Data in America’s Largest Cities,” Atlanta received a grade of “F” in terms of governmental transparency.
To view Moore’s presentation, visit this link to download the PDF.
