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Office: 118 South, State Capitol ~ Phone: (608) 266-0484; Toll-Free: (800) 334-1465, FAX: 267-0304 ~ Mail: P.O. Box 7882, Madison, WI 53707-7882
10/12/2011
Audit Co-chairs Assess Future of
Contract Sunshine
 
 
MADISON – Today, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee held a public hearing on the recent audit of Wisconsin’s Contract Sunshine Act, which was enacted in May 2006. This Act requires all state agencies to report, within 24 hours, their purchasing activities of $10,000 or more in a fiscal biennium to the Government Accountability Board (GAB) for posting to a publicly accessible Web site located at http://sunshine.wi.gov. Only minimal GAB resources have been devoted to developing and maintaining the Web site.
 
LAB found the Contract Sunshine Web site of limited value in providing the public with clear, comprehensive, and useful information. For example, the Contract Sunshine Act requires state agencies to report only the estimated values of transactions, while actual expenditures may differ significantly from these estimates. The Act also does not require agencies to report vendor names, which makes it difficult for a public user to locate particular transactions. 
 
“We need to take the recommendations of the audit and efficiently work towards change,” said Rep. Kerkman (R-Randall). If today’s hearing proved anything it’s that we still have a long way to go, but we are on the right track.”
 
LAB also found that numerous limitations in the Web site’s design have affected the timeliness and comprehensiveness of agency reporting. For example, transactions generally cannot be transferred automatically by agencies and must instead be compiled and reported manually by agency staff.
 
In 2011 Wisconsin Act 32, the Legislature directed the Department of Administration to establish a new publicly accessible Web site that will report all expenditures for state operations exceeding $100. If implemented as specified, this new Web site could be more useful than the Contract Sunshine Web site for public monitoring of government purchasing. However, before the Legislature considers repealing Contract Sunshine statutes, LAB notes that it will be important to ensure that the new Web site can achieve its intended goals at a reasonable cost and in a timely manner. LAB recommends that DOA report to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in January 2012 on the status of its efforts to implement the new Web site.

“I’ve been very involved in making government more transparent and am happy that we were able to sit down with the GAB and DOA to work towards finding solutions to these problems,” said Sen. Cowles (R-Green Bay). “We will continue to keep an eye on the progress of this program and work towards putting measures in place that will give the taxpayers of this state more transparency and accountability in their government.”