O’Malley Lacks Transparency with Much-Touted State Stat 5/09

As Governor, Martin O’Malley “talks the talk” – and for the most part the media regurgitates it with an uncritical eye.

But does O’Malley “walk the walk?”

Former Baltimore Examiner reporter Len Lazarick is one of the few in Annapolis who continues to question the highly-controlled media message out of the O’Malley press office.  In a just released study by the Free State Foundation, Lazarick provides a “truth or fiction” analysis of the much-touted state stat management program.

From day one, O’Malley has promised transparency in government.  Those who have covered Annapolis for more than a year or two know that behind the façade of transparency in state government is an iron-fisted clamp on the release of information from the second floor.  (The Governor’s website is dense, press releases are selectively distributed to favored media and not posted on the website for days, admission to press conferences is highly-controlled, post-press conference questions are frequently prohibited, etc.)

In his first State of the State Address, O’Malley promised, “And in order to make our government work with greater efficiency and effectiveness, we will be implementing StateStat. What is that? It is a system of open and transparent administration that actually sets goals and has guts to measure progress towards achieving those goals. All of that with relentless follow-up.”

Since then, the media has heralded the promise of State Stat.  O’Malley goes to Congress to testify about the wonders of State Stat.  O’Malley creates Bay Stat.  Now every agency has a “stat” page with facts and figures about that agency (to see reports and graphs – click here).

So, what does it all mean?

According to Lazarick, what is available on the website means very little.  Without the substantive analysis, the public can gleen much of nothing out of the state stat process.

But to release the substantive analysis might show the warts of government.  It might show the truth that we, as a state, are not moving in the right direction for O’Malley’s ever-cherished and oft-quoted PROGRESS.

To the naysayer, State Stat is highly scrubbed so that only the data that contributes to the highly controlled political message of the Administration is released.

In spite of the national acclaim, Lazarick proffers  "But StateStat does not yet come close to delivering on its promise to provide Marylanders 'with open, transparent, and timely information and data on state government agencies' because the information is indecipherable detail without analysis.  The governor's staff needs to supply the analysis it performs, or provide information in some other more comprehensible form for the StateStat program to be accountable to the public."

To review the Free State Foundation report, How Is State Stat Working?, click here.