Oklahoma Counties Fail Web Site Transparency Test

This evaluation may be a bit unfair... how many counties in our state don't even have a computer yet?

A quick evaluation of their findings, along with our knowledge of websites provided by county governments leads us to challenge their conclusion that 69 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties are failing to be “open and honest with the public.”
Their list of counties with websites includes two counties (Jefferson and Murray) which do not appear to have official county government sites and omits six counties (Beckham, Delaware, Greer, Love, Marshall, and Ottawa) which have official county sites. You can find a link to Oklahoma counties with official websites at www.okcounties.org . Further, their “grade” is only relevant if you agree with their choice of criteria and with their equally weighting.
More importantly, there is an implicit assumption that counties which do not have official countywide sites have no presence on the web—an assumption which is not valid in Oklahoma. Our county treasurers’ portal at www.okcountytreasurers.com links to 46 county treasurers who make searchable tax records available. Most of these websites also
provide taxpayers the option of paying property taxes online. On Demand Court Records at www.odcr.com provides access to records from 68 district courts in the state. Thirty-one county clerks have land records available online at www.okcountyrecords.com . Seven county assessors offer free access to public records through links at www.okcountyassessors.org . Although subscription sites, both
countyassessor.info and oklahoma.usassessor.com offer some information free to the public. County audits are available at the www.sai.ok.gov , the state auditor’s website.
While we agree with Sunshine Review that “every county in the nation has a responsibility to make basic information easily available to the taxpayer” and we hope to offer counties an affordable means for doing so, we want you to know, that from our perspective, the majority of county officials in Oklahoma are striving to balance costs with benefits and public access and accountability with privacy. We respect them for that.