While the Illinois legislature explores ways to help fund Chicago's mass transit agencies, its spending reveals these agencies used nearly $700,000 of taxpayers' dollars to contract with lobbyists. Given their success, lobbying state governments could be a trend worthy for vendors to imitate.

According to a report by government watchdog, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR), local governments and public agencies in Illinois spent more than $5 million in 2007 seeking advice and services of lobbying firms to influence decisions of state government officials.

Chicago's four mass transit agencies spent $700,000 in lobbyist services, more than all governments surveyed by the ICPR. The outcry by local taxpayers followed findings disclosing that the Chicago Transit Authority and the Regional Transportation Authority combined dedicated lobbying contracts of nearly $444,000. It will be interesting to see how this information will affect discussions in the Illinois legislature, currently debating over mass transit reform and "much needed" funding for these two transit agencies.

According to a recent article, some might not disagree over the necessity of public spending on lobbying. The Regional Transportation Authority claims the lobbying services were essential in preventing potential fare increases and services cuts by the transit agency in 2007.

It is up to Chicagoans to determine whether or not these services are vital to the operations of the transit agencies. Nonetheless, the work of the ICPR must be praised. Although their efforts shine light in an area and scope never researched before, it is important to point out that it took the group six weeks to get responses from Freedom of Information Requests filed with cities and counties participating in the survey. A process that could have taken no more than a couple of hours if this information was readily available online and to anyone interested in tracking public spending on lobbying.

The success of agencies lobbying state governments must also be an approach vendors should used to attempt to influence decisions by governors, state government officials and legislators on major initiatives related to IT and laws affecting procurement practices.