Andy Shaw

This is how a wishful watchdog hopes our Illinois state legislators spent New Year’s Eve: Popping a Champagne cork, strapping on a party hat, pulling out a kazoo — and then considering some serious resolutions.

In the spirit of the season, here’s what we consider the Better Government Association’s “Top Ten Investigations of 2013” — not in order of importance because that’s too arbitrary, but chronologically.

Some of you may have read or heard about a Better Government Association investigation of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times last weekend.

Public employees, past and present, consider the financial sacrifices they’re being asked to swallow in the state’s pension deal an unconstitutional betrayal by the Illinois lawmakers who supported the bill.

The big pension story last week was Springfield’s long-overdue passage of a comprehensive reform plan that includes a fiscal fix and some key anti-abuse provisions.

Dorothy Brown says it’s a “personal” matter, but the state’s economic interest and campaign finance disclosure requirements may not agree with the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk’s lack of transparency after a windfall profit on a land deal.

Question: What proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Chicago aldermen need a financial watchdog to help them analyze an administration’s mega-buck spending, borrowing and contracting proposals?

Here’s the inherent dilemma that keeps me up at night as the head of a full-service anti-corruption watchdog organization: How to hold elected officials accountable, and critique their policies, and still get them to support our legislative agenda.

I’ve been thinking about falling dominos in a different context lately — government here in Illinois — where the danger is an erosion of transparency and accountability in public agencies funded with our tax dollars.

Money talks, but apparently not to the watchdogs who face greater workloads but not additional funding in 2014 City of Chicago spending plan.