Against the odds, city restructures spending

JIAOZUO, Henan - Unlike many other mayors in the country whose salaries are carefully concealed from the public, the pay of Lu Guoxian, mayor of Jiaozuo, a city in Central China's Henan province, is published online.

Along with the salaries of government employees, the website of the Jiaozuo finance bureau also regularly publishes information such as the city's annual budget, the progress of government projects, notices of upcoming hearings and the cell phone numbers of finance officers.

A city with a medium-sized economy in Henan, Jiaozuo tops a nationwide government financial transparency ranking with 78 points, according to a study by the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in 2010.