The latest Public Information Act news from The Texas Tribune.
Curious which Texans in Congress are investing in oil and natural gas, and who has a wallet full of credit cards? The Clerk’s Office at the U.S. House of Representatives released lawmakers' 2011 financial disclosure reports today. The Texas Tribune has uploaded all the documents here. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/DisclosureDoc.jpg)
The Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services said today that the personal data of about 4,900 current and former state employees may have been exposed in a security breach. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/filesandfiles.png)
Data journalism guru Matt Stiles may have left the building but Ryan Murphy and Becca Aaronson will be keeping the tradition and spirit of @stiles alive by continuing to update the data blog On the Records and the @TribData Twitter account. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/datapps-graphic.jpg)
We've added 27 new entities — including university systems, transit authorities, and appraisal and school districts — to the Tribune's government employee salaries database and updated 30 others, bringing the total number to 129, with salary data for 660,000 public employees. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/GovSal_DataScreenshot.jpg)
It’s been more than a month since state officials acknowledged they'd exposed millions of Texans' Social Security numbers and other information online. Matt Largey of KUT News reports what the state's been doing to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. Full Story
In an apology issued Thursday morning, The Monitor announced that, in response to reader complaints, it will remove public school district salary data it posted earlier this week. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/MonitorSalaries.jpg)
Data enthusiasts may be cringing at proposed federal cuts to data transparency websites, but the Texas Senate passed a bill today that would promote state transparency by requiring agencies to post high-value data sets online. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/kirkwatsontriblive.jpg)
We’ve pushed the first update of the New Year to our government salary database, which now includes data on more than 650,000 employees from more than 100 entities. This update refreshes the salaries of more than 20 public agencies and adds 13 new entities. Full Story
How did the candidates on the ballot last year compare in their political spending on advertising, polling and staff? Use our interactive bubble chart to explore category data released recently by the Texas Ethics Commission. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/spending-bubbles-totals.PNG)
The Trib staff on the sweeping cuts in the proposed House budget, Grissom on what's lost and not found at the Department of Public Safety, Galbraith on the wind power conundrum, Hamilton on higher ed's pessimistic budget outlook, Stiles and Swicegood debut an incredibly useful bill tracker app, Ramsey interviews Rick Perry on the cusp of his second decade as governor, Aguilar on a Mexican journalist's quest for asylum in the U.S., Ramshaw on life expectancy along the border, M. Smith on the obstacles school districts face in laying off teachers and yours truly talks gambling and the Rainy Day Fund with state Rep. Jim Pitts: The best of our best from January 17 to 21, 2011. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Tribweek_01_17_2011.jpg)
The Texas attorney general's office is weighing in on the back-and-forth between the Texas Windstorm Insurance Agency and Democratic attorney Steve Mostyn, who has been fighting in the courts to keep Hurricane Ike settlement details private. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Taylor_Mostyn.jpg)
This week we added more than 20 new public agencies to The Texas Tribune's government employee salary database. The application now features payroll data on more than 620,000 employees from 88 school districts, cities, community colleges, universities, state agencies and transit authorities. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/020910-payrollapp.jpg)
A new rule that took effect this summer allows — for the first time — real categorization of campaign spending. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/112409_money001_jv.jpg)
Texans weren't supposed to see Gov. Rick Perry's Sept. 15 schedule after all. The governor's office says it mistakenly released the governor's "political schedule" — as opposed to his schedule of official state business — to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White's campaign. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/78e5e6ab6f8b532f30a9760995e64acc/BD%20INC%20Perry%20Stage%202010)
Gov. Rick Perry apparently keeps a more detailed schedule than what his office has previously released to the public. In what might have been a mistake, a more detailed version came out in response to an open records request from Democrat Bill White’s campaign. Full Story
How to use our latest interactive. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/videos/treemap.JPG)
In an issue that's sparked a nasty political fight, attorneys for the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association and attorneys for the homeowners who sued them appeared at a Monday hearing to argue whether the legal fees in a record $189 million Hurricane Ike settlement should be kept private. Judge Susan Criss ultimately sided with homeowners' attorney Steve Mostyn and granted a new temporary restraining order that keeps TWIA from releasing settlement details, at least for now. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/videos/Screen_shot_2010-09-27_at_1.20.47_PM.png)
The Texas Attorney General is investigating suspicions that the Internet giant is gaming search results to harm competitors. Nathan Bernier of KUT News reports. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/449ec7d6dea11eec4a202c1caeb90913/BD%20INC%20Greg%20Abbott%20Archival%202010)
The head of the state's Commission on Jail Standards could do time for being too open about a suicide in the Nueces County lockup. Is the indictment of Adan Muñoz retaliation by a sheriff his lawyer describes as a "crazy little bastard"? Regardless, an open government advocate calls it "outrageous." Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/prisoners_CM.jpg)
When Bill White criticized Rick Perry in June for "working part time" after his schedule for the first six months of 2010 showed an average of seven hours of state business per week, Perry responded that he doesn’t write down much of his work for the state. By contrast, Perry's counterparts in California, New York and Florida do write down what they do, and they make their schedules readily available to the public. Full Story
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/images/Governors-calendars.jpg)