A BGA Policy analysis of the 16 county detention centers across Illinois has found that only three successfully have completed audits mandated by federal law to enforce protections against sexual ...

Better Government Association believes in transparency and accountability, which is why we have partnered with FastDemocracy to bring you some of the most powerful tools to keep tabs on your lawmakers ...

To help shine light on Illinois’ judicial branch, BGA Policy is proud to lead the Court Transparency Coalition, which recommends that the judicial branch be added to the state’s Freedom of Information ...

Your Transparency Watchdog BGA OpenGov is the Illinois affiliate of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. Without access to information about the workings of government, it would be ...

The BGA’s policy agenda for the City of Chicago pursues structural reforms of the City Council, further empowerment of the Office of Inspector General, and measures to strengthen the city’s ...

El acceso a los documentos gubernamentales es fundamental en nuestro sistema de gobierno abierto. Tienen derecho a saber qué están haciendo sus gobiernos. Access to government documents is fundamental ...

For first-time watchers, Chicago’s City Council can seem incomprehensible. Most of the business is done in a routine, rapid-fire succession of votes and gavel raps, punctuated by repetitions of the ...

A unanimous Illinois Supreme Court ruling yesterday in a case called Chapman v. Chicago reverses a lower court’s ruling and blocks plaintiff Matt Chapman’s open records request for information from ...

Departmental budgets for three of Chicago’s oversight agencies are not on their own sufficient to meet mandatory minimums described in law, a BGA Policy analysis of annual appropriations and related ...

Chicago taxpayers are on the hook for an average $93.6 million a year for legal judgments and settlements against the city. A Better Government Association policy team analysis found that after years ...

Chicago’s City Council is off to a slow start in 2023: Only about 40% of its time in session so far this year – or about two of every five hours between the opening and closing gavels– has been spent ...

In a memo sent Friday to the Chicago City Council’s ethics committee, city Inspector General Deborah Witzburg laid out a series of what her office characterizes as obstructions by the city’s law ...