Demanding Transparency: Why Delaware Needs to Hold Its Government Accountable
By: Jane Brady, Chair, A Better Delaware
We at A Better Delaware have long contended that more transparency is needed in Delaware’s government. Information about what our elected officials are doing in their official roles and with our tax dollars should be readily available. Sadly, that is not the case. According to the Pioneer Institute, Delaware ranks among the six worst states for financial transparency.
We certainly saw evidence of a lack of transparency recently with the revelation, months later, that there had been a criminal embezzlement of public funds at the Department of Labor Unemployment office. Think of the complicity that such a deception required – co-workers of the individual who committed the crime, the individuals who investigated the matter within the agency, the police investigators, perhaps even the highest levels of our State government. Yet they felt no obligation to report the incident publicly. And this is not a partisan issue – both Democrats and Republicans raised concerns, former Democrat legislator John Kowalko among the most vocal.
What if you want to know how well your student’s school is doing with promoting actual learning? Well, according to an expert in these matters, it takes six different “clicks” on the Department of Education website to get to the information. A bill that would have required that to be available from the Department’s Home Page failed in the General Assembly last year.
Did you know that while we have no sales tax in Delaware, we have a gross receipts tax, and that vendors, stores and companies are not allowed to display that tax as an addition to the cost of an item or service you purchase? Tax free shopping? Or invisible tax shopping? Delaware is one of only a few states that retain that tax in their funding structure.
Remember the heavy-handed, boulder-sized response the Governor and General Assembly had last session to address the state’s health care costs? They established a 5-person government appointed panel to review hospital budgets with the authority to reject a hospital’s proposed spending plans or to demand specific expenditures. (Hospitals are now suing over that legislation.) Did you know that, at the same appropriations hearing at which the General Assembly authorized $700,000 to administer that oversight program, they also authorized expanded health care coverage and eliminated co-apays for state employees and retirees for certain medical procedures? And they wonder why the state’s health care costs are so high!
Why is transparency so important? Without transparency, there is no accountability. If you don’t know how poorly your student’s school is performing, you won’t be at the school board hearing demanding better. If you don’t know there was embezzlement, you won’t demand better and more effective accounting systems. If you don’t know that the state is crying “wolf” on the one hand, and increasing costs on the other, you won’t ask them “Why?” If you aren’t aware of all the ways the government is getting its tax money, you won’t appreciate that it is not the business that is increasing prices to gouge you but raising them to cover the hidden costs of doing business in the state.
The Center for Public Integrity gives Delaware an “F.” Specific measures include State Budget Processes (42nd), Internal Auditing (43rd) Legislative Accountability (48th) and Ethics Enforcement (43rd).
Delaware needs to be more transparent, and our state officials need to be held accountable. An Inspector General can assure an independent review of agency actions, and more transparency. An ethics officer can assure better scrutiny of the conduct of state officials. Delaware should pass laws to create both offices now. The citizens of our state deserve to know when, how and why our government is acting, and where our money is being spent.
Jane Brady serves as Chair of A Better Delaware. She previously served as Attorney General of Delaware and as a Judge of the Delaware Superior Court.