NC Transparency.com is an organization that promotes transparency in North Carolina government. It has a web site, produced by the John Locke Foundation, that connects citizens to important governmental information available online. You can search for a specific government entity or browse through listings organized by county, school system, municipality, or individual state agency.
EyeonDare took a train ride through the website and stopped in Dare County, where we were not surprised to see that the "Land of Beginnings" received a "B" report card for laying all its cards on the table for the taxpayers to see. Also, EOD wasn't surprised to see that the Dare board of education and all municipalities, except Nags Head, received "D" grades. Nags Head, like Dare, was awarded a "B".
EOD encourages its readers to browse through this website and judge for yourself how well our county is doing in providing total transparency to its taxpayers.
The single most important thing that impressed EyeonDare about info available on this site was seeing that those counties that received an "A" report card had an "open checkbook" policy. In other words, its residents could go online and read the county checkbook just like they could their own personal checkbook. "Dare County, are you listening?" Every single check that is written for governmental operations is available to the taxpayer in Grade "A" counties, as well as all county contracts (click here).
The thing that rubs EOD so much about Dare's lack of forthrightness in this respect is that our county commissioners and county finance officer love to brag about how Dare County ranks so high in public school funding, tax collections, and being a "donor county", etc. At the same time they try to keep it quiet that they pay some of the highest salaries of any county in North Carolina, including metropolitan counties like Mecklenburg, Wake, Durham.
So, isn't it time that Dare County opened its checkbook to all its citizens? What have we got to hide? If other counties can do it, why can't Dare?
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