Public Trust in the Budget Committee
Below is my PUBLIC COMMENT for the 12/17/2024 Coos County Commissioners Meeting
Re: Order 24-12-057C, In the Matter of Reappointing Sven Backman to the Coos County Budget Committee
Coos County Commissioners:
Public trust and perception is paramount. The current trust in our government is quite low, and the public perception when it comes to finances is that the government is hiding information and meetings are being held practically in secret. Don’t believe me? Well let’s consider some questions that a concerned citizen might have about the Coos County Budget Committee appointment on today’s consent calendar:
When was public notice given for this vacancy on the Budget Committee? Where can the public find out how this committee operates? Who makes appointments? When does it meet? Who is on the committee? When do their terms expire? Where are the meeting minutes? What decisions have they made? How did they vote? What did they vote on? And most importantly: How do I participate?
How might I find answers to those questions? Well let’s be a good citizen and take some initiative… And so I navigate to the current “Budget Committee” page on the county website and find that it has ZERO information:
At a bare minimum it should list current members of the committee, their credentials/bio, and when their terms expire. It should also have an explanation about what the committee does, when they meet, why they meet, who appoints them, and how they make decisions. There should be a list of tentative future meeting dates as well as a list of past meeting dates, decisions, recordings, and minutes.
But maybe that information exists on other parts of your website? Nope. This is what you get when you search on your website for “budget committee”:
The only results were the past few years of meeting notices for the budget committee. No committee applications. No public notices of vacancies. No public notices of appointments. No information on the makeup of the committee or how people get appointed. No meeting minutes. No meeting recordings. Nothing.
But maybe there’s something in the County Code or County Rules? Nope. This is what you see when you look at the County Codes:
I searched all of the “County Code” and “County Rules” posted on the website. I had to manually open every individual PDF file (30 total) and search within each document. I did not find any details of a “Budget Committee” except one mention that “the Board [of Commissioners] also sits as part of the Coos County Budget Committee”, but no details about appointments or procedures. Out of all the hundreds and hundreds of pages of codes and ordinances, you get this one sentence:
But maybe there’s an upcoming meeting that I can attend, so I check the calendar. Nope. Nothing. This is what you get when you search the meeting calendar for the term “budget”:
But maybe we can ask one of our elected officials how to get involved with the committee? Well we can, but they just tell you the committee members are appointed by the Commissioners and the road ends there. No application process. Nothing.
So….. this is a major part of why the public perception is that you guys operate in secret and are trying to hide financial decisions. It doesn’t mean that is true (that you meet in secret or hide things), but it should not be surprising based on everything I have outlined as to why citizens would come to that conclusion. Make sense now?
I will say that I personally took the initiative to bother the heck out of the Commissioners and Treasurer this past year and was able to attend almost all of the Budget Committee hearings in March and April (and June & December) and ask a ton of questions and even participate in some discussions. This was almost entirely because of Commissioner Taylor’s commitment to transparency and I commend him for those efforts. We even got a few of those meetings recorded and broadcasted on YouTube which I appreciate immensely because I was able to use them to get some other passionate citizens involved and interested in the budget process. I was also able to share more quality information with the public because of my attendance at those meetings and the publications of the recent budget meetings on YouTube.
HOWEVER – that kind of time commitment and persistence should not be expected of every citizen (or any regular citizen for that matter). And the county website should have A LOT more information about the Budget Committee.
IN ADDITION – there should be a transparent process put in place where public notice is given of committee vacancies, and a time period given where interested citizens are sought out, encouraged to complete applications, and interviews are conducted. I am not aware of that process existing currently nor do I find any evidence of it in county records that are readily accessible to me.
LASTLY – You have a new Commissioner-elect that will be starting in just a few weeks… He should be involved in committee selections that will almost certainly impact the next 4 years of his tenure.
I URGE YOU TO POSTPONE THIS COMMITTEE APPOINTMENT, CREATE A FAIR, THOROUGH, AND TRANSPARENT SELECTION PROCESS, AND UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE WITH VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT THE BUDGET COMMITTEE AND ITS PROCESSES.
To do anything else would only further destroy the public trust and cement the current perception that you are hiding operations and decisions from the public.
UPDATE: Due to my comments, the committee appointment was postponed and a better process will be investigated.