To prevent abuse

Make government data more open

Imagine a $1.6 million hole. You’ve just had a glimpse of the Craighead County payroll account. Money that should have been used for payroll and remittance to other government agencies was allegedly taken by a county official.

As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, now-former Craighead County Clerk Kade Holliday was arrested and subsequently charged with 12 felonies related to theft of public funds estimated at $1.6 million and one count of abuse of office. The probable-cause affidavit revealed that Holliday had allegedly been moving payroll funds into a personal account since Jan. 23, 2020.

Prior to Holliday’s arrest in June, a story by KAIT8 on Sept. 29, 2019, revealed that Holliday made a gift commitment of $500,000 to establish two programs at Arkansas State University. He also pledged additional annual gifts while the endowment builds to maturity.

While residents were going through economic hardship due to the covid-19 pandemic, their public funds were being grossly mismanaged. Is there a way taxpayers in Craighead County could have known about Holliday’s alleged criminal activities earlier?

It is not uncommon for corruption to happen when public officials have easy access to public funds. This case is yet another example of the importance of providing checks on abuse of power in government through great accountability. Arkansans expect their governments to be accountable. Transparency and public access are necessary to achieve this.

In a 2010 paper, “Transparency and performance in government,” published in the North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, authors Jerry Brito and Drew Perraut put it this way: “If the people cannot adequately monitor their political agents, this means they are allowing them to act in secret and if allowed to act in secret, officials will have a greater incentive for self-dealing at the expense of their principals, the people.”

To provide systemic opportunities for residents to publicly engage their officials about their county’s financial data and to help county officials work towards greater transparency and accountability, the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics (ACRE) published the second edition of its report “Access Arkansas: County Web Transparency” in December 2019. The report reveals the current gaps in fiscal, political, and administrative data transparency in Arkansas counties and further makes recommendations on how counties and residents can address those gaps.

According to the report, Craighead County ranks No. 9 on the index, not because they did a great job, but because so many other counties are even worse. Craighead County publishes less than half of the important public information tracked in the study.

Craighead County is not alone in limited reporting. The report shows that 67 of the 75 Arkansas counties publish less than 50% of the requisite information online. An example of information they fail to publish is salaries. Craighead, like most other counties in Arkansas, does not publish elected official salaries online.

Publishing salaries online could empower residents to more easily track and report corrupt practices like the one alleged in Holliday’s case. Holliday’s alleged crime was only discovered after six months through an audit process. Audits are good, but a 2020 study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), “Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse,” says that audits are only able to detect less than 20% of fraud.

There is a need for residents and the press to be more engaged in the process of transparency. In an article on Governing.com, “Disclosing Public Employee Pay Troubles Some Officials,” author Mike Maciag opines that publishing basic salary details of public officials online can act as a deterrent to government corruption and provide the public some oversight. If this happens, members of the public or the press can quickly and easily point out irregularities, like when a public official earning about $68,000 a year makes a public donation of $500,000.

In a free society, individuals have rights and government officials have responsibilities. It is our right to check on our officials, and it is their responsibility to ensure that these rights are secure and the processes of accountability are transparent.

When transparency happens, our trust and our funds are safer for it.

Joyce Ajayi is a policy analyst with the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and coauthor of “Access Arkansas: County Web Transparency,” an annual report on the accessibility of fiscal, administrative, and political information in Arkansas counties. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of UCA.