Utah receives 'B' for providing information to public

Utah's state and local governments earned an "above-average" grade of "B" — and ranked No. 7 among the states — in a new national report card on how well their websites provide information to the public.

Sunshine Review, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving transparency in government, released its report card on Tuesday, measuring how well state and local governments meet a checklist of information that it says they should provide online.

Utah received an overall score of 79 percent, putting it atop the 17 states that received a grade of B, but behind the six states that received a B-plus: California, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.

The group gave Utah's school districts its second-highest overall grade among the states at 86 percent. It gave Utah's cities the third-highest score nationwide at 88 percent.

But Utah's state government received a score of 72 percent, ranking it No. 21 among the states.

The report says state and local governments generally do well in posting such things as annual budgets, how to contact officials and meeting minutes. It said many governments struggle to disclose such things as lobbying data, how to obtain public records and information about contracts.

To view the 26-page report, go to http://bit.ly/14rZ1uz.

ldavidson@sltrib.com