Public appointees must learn letter, spirit of Sunshine Law

As a pillar of the Fourth Estate in the Mahoning Valley, The Vindicator has long staunchly advocated maximum public participation in decision-making and problem-solving at all levels of government. Robust and diverse representation, after all, forms the very foundation of our 241-year-old democracy.

Epitomizing that goal locally over the past four months has been the Trumbull County Budget Review Committee, a panel of a dozen people from a broad cross-section of the county who were tasked with evaluating the county’s strained finances and offering recommendation to the Trumbull County commissioners on how to shore them up. The task clearly is needed in light of a county revenue reservoir that is all too quickly drying up. The 2017 budget for county government stands at $44.6 million, which represents a $1.1 million loss over the past year alone.

After about 800 hours of meetings and work sessions, committee members earlier this month released a detailed seven-page report recommending at least $2 million in potential cost savings and $2.6 million in property-tax cuts. Once cuts are made, the committee recommends consideration of enacting a 0.5-percent increase in the county sales tax, a move it says could result in $12.6 million in new revenue.

Some of the committee’s proposals – such as increasing county employees’ share of retirement payments and improving worker productivity – immediately resonate as sensible moves for county commissioners to embrace in order to bring public workers’ employment standards more in sync with private-sector realities.

Other proposals, most notably the potential 50 percent increase in the county sales tax, will require considerably more discussion, debate and public input.

To be sure, the budget committee worked diligently and with great attention to detail in mapping one potential route out of the county’s ongoing fiscal malaise.

CLOSED-MEETING DUSTUP

Unfortunately, along the road of public-spirited volunteer service, members of the advisory committee hit a few rough patches that kicked dirt in the face of accountability and transparency, two bedrock ideals of representative democracy.

That drew the attention of Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins who last week issued an opinion that the citizens committee probably acted in violation of the state’s Sunshine Laws on on a few occasions by meeting behind closed doors on personnel matters.

Watkins cautioned the committee, which plans to continue meeting quarterly, against closing a meeting to the public unless its reason clearly meets the narrow, specific and applicable exemptions provided in Ohio’s open-meetings statutes.

Some doubt exists, however, over the extent of potential wrongdoing by committee members. As pointed out by the county prosecutor, unlike most public bodies, this panel did not possess “the statutory power to actually hire, fire, promote, demote or otherwise change the employment of any employee.”

Nevertheless, even though the committee may not have violated the letter of the law, its members clearly breached the spirit of the law. In so doing, the commitment to 100 percent transparency and accountability the public deserves from its representatives clearly was cheapened.

We’re confident, however, that this group of well-intentioned and hard-working volunteers had nothing nefarious up their sleeves or had anything to hide in aggressively working to perform their task to the best of their abilities. Its results prove as much.

Rather, it appears as if the committee’s transgressions may have stemmed from ignorance and a lack of adequate instruction about and emphasis on adhering to Sunshine Laws. That oversight falls on the shoulders of the appointing authority, county commissioners Dan Polivka, Frank Fuda and Mauro Cantalamessa.

Their representatives should require training and instruction on public-meeting and open-records law as prerequisites for service on a panel that could impact taxpayers. The state attorney general’s office offers an abundance of manuals and resources for neophyte public servants.

Sadly, this apparent skirting of open-meetings law is not isolated. Throughout Ohio, similar and more egregious violations remain all too common. It’s clearly past time then for public officials to recommit themselves and all of their appointees to a clear and full understanding of the intricacies of our state’s Sunsine Laws. Then, all must faithfully follow those laws as a tangible investment in true participatory democracy.