When establishing a standard for government transparency, Sunshine Review looks at nine different standard aspects of an organization's Web site.  Here's a rundown with some examples, good and bad.

Budgets.  It should be straightforward to locate the organization's current fiscal year budget, previous budgets, and copies of proposed budgets for future fiscal years.  Budget projections for future years and the assumptions behind them are also useful.  

Good: The Pittsfield Township budgets are available going back to 2004. 

Bad: The Ann Arbor Charter Township treasurer's page has information about tax collection, but not budgets.

Meeting agenda and minutes.  It should be possible at a glance to see a calendar of all upcoming public meetings, to review meeting agendas and supporting board packet documentation for upcoming meetings and to review previous meeting agendas and minutes.  Video replay of meetings is helpful, especially when it is keyed to agenda items.  

Good: The Ann Arbor City Council meetings are carefully documented, with video for each agenda item.  

Bad:  The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority's Planning and Development Committee no longer publishes its meeting minutes, agendas, or board packets online.

Contact information for elected officials.  The name, official e-mail address, postal address for correspondence, and telephone number for calls for each elected official should be listed.  FAX and TTY/TDD numbers should be provided as well.  

Good:  The Washtenaw County Clerk, Larry Kestenbaum publishes a print "Washtenaw County Directory 2009-2010", available for free, in print, which is a comprehensive list of local officials.  The Sylvan Township board member listing includes home phone numbers and addresses.

Good: Sylvan Township again has complete listings, at board and commission levels.

Property taxes and income taxes.  A complete list of all taxes, fees, and assessments associated with each parcel should be readily available via a query for that specific parcel.  In addition, an overall overview of the tax burden in the municipality, detailing the origin, destination, duration and amount of each of the line items on a tax bill should be available.  Assessor's information, including the details of how to appeal your assessment, should be easy to locate.  The calendar for tax assessments should be easy to locate, and the penalties, fees, and foreclosure schedule for failure to pay property taxes should be evident.  Any programs or functions at the local or county level aimed at assisting residents who have trouble paying their property taxes should be prominently displayed.

Good: York Township uses BSA Software for tax and assessment information, as do other townships in the area.

Bad: I didn't find any examples where property tax information was hard to find.

Forms and applications for zoning.  All forms and applications needed to apply for a zoning change, appeal, or variance should be available online.  The process for making applications should be readily apparent, and the schedule, minutes, and agenda for a zoning board of appeals should be easy to locate, complete and up to date.  A complete zoning map of the community should be available in a form suitable for assisting in site planning, and copies of any municipal master planning documents showing directions for long-term land use should be easy to locate and comprehensive.

Bad: The Northfield Township zoning information page is blank.

Better, not great: Sylvan Township zoning information gives a single point of contact, but is not comprehensive information.

Contracts or lobbying information are listed.  Affiliations of elected and appointed officials who have contracts, lobbying relationships, or other potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed as a matter of routine in the official biographies provided on the municipality's Web site. 

Good: I couldn't find a good example.

Bad: In general, official bios are missing, or when they exist no affiliations are listed.

Information about requesting public records.  Individuals wishing to make a request for public records should be directed to a page detailing the FOIA process and procedures, including approved forms for requests, a copy of a fee schedule for copying and the costs of labor and names of people to speak to prior to making a request. A copy of the appeal process if a FOIA request is denied in whole or in part should also be available as well as a reading room for copies of frequently requested documents.  A periodic report detailing FOIA activity, including a log of FOIA requests and a management report from the FOIA coordinator, is appropriate.  

Good: the City of Ann Arbor, City of Ypsilanti and the Chelsea District Library all have straightforward FOIA request information pages.  

Tracking down all of this detail at the local level is not a small amount of work; I'd encourage you to look at the Sunshine Review and track down the missing bits of detail that should be there.  In a future FOIA Friday column. I hope to get to the point where the area Web sites are assessed well enough to give them letter grades.