From the Greensboro News and Record (12/16/08): If Chairman Skip Alston and other Guilford County commissioners want to spend weeks poring over the budget, taxpayers ought to encourage them.
Line-by-line scrutiny will force more accountability for proposed spending. When commissioners set tax rates each year, they should assure the public that every dollar is needed to support required or desired services.
At the same time, they shouldn’t mind if citizens want to take a look for themselves.
Alston announced last week a plan to assign commissioners to committees that will review the budgets of each of the county’s 26 departments. But the meetings would be closed, not open to the public, and none would be attended by more than five board members.
The significance of five reflects an apparent misunderstanding of the state’s open meetings law. When a majority of an elected body meets to conduct business, the law requires an open meeting except in certain circumstances. There are 11 commissioners, so five falls one short of a majority.
But, when the commissioners form committees, each committee is regarded as a separate public body of its own. If it has three members, then a meeting of two must be open.
Alston has pledged to abide by the law — which ought to dismiss any idea of conducting closed meetings.
Legalities aside, what would be a good reason for secrecy when discussing how to spend taxpayers’ money?
Alston said commissioners don’t want to frighten county employees who might worry their jobs are on the line when talks turn to budget cuts. He also cited salary and personnel matters.
Personnel matters, such as individual job performances, may be kept confidential unless there’s a compelling public reason to allow disclosure. But that’s not a budget issue. For budget purposes, commissioners should look at positions, not people. They don’t supervise or evaluate rank-and-file employees or even department heads, who report to the county manager.
Those employees might worry about their jobs, as workers in private industry do these days. Alston is talking about achieving greater efficiencies in county government, which usually means trying to get more work done by fewer employees. He showed how serious he is by appointing Steve Arnold, the board’s leading fiscal conservative, to head a budget committee.
Everyone understands that some cuts will be necessary, so employee anxiety is not a valid excuse for keeping details from the public.
Elected officials in Washington are doing too much financial maneuvering these days without letting taxpayers know what’s happening. Leaders at the local level ought to be much more open.