January 5, 2013
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Nearly one in five Virginia local governments received failing grades in an advocacy group's survey of how easy it is for taxpayers to access their budgets online.
The Virginia Coalition for Open Government released results of its survey of the state's 134 counties and cities Friday. Twenty-six localities received F grades for having extremely limited or no budget data on their websites. Eighteen localities received A grades, led by the city of Fairfax with the only A-plus.
Locally, Louisa and Greene counties both received an F. Fluvanna County is the only local area that received an A.
The organization's review began with a check of how many mouse clicks it takes to get to the locality's budget. It then delved into details, including whether documents were searchable by keyword and whether past budgets were available for comparison purposes. The testers also checked for context, explanations and summaries.
LOCAL RESULTS:
Albemarle County: C+
Charlottesville: B
Culpeper County: B
Fluvanna County: A
Greene County: F
Louisa County: F
Madison County: C+
Nelson County: D
Orange County: A
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