Transparency and our open and endless pockets

In November 2008, the Empire Center For New York State Policy published a policy paper entitled “Lifting the Shroud of Secrecy From Public Employee Contracts.” The article started with the sentence “The ‘people’s right to know’ is a hollow concept when government can withhold vital information until it is too late for the people’s voice to be heard.” Unfortunately, it seems that the new Long Beach Board of Education’s philosophy about the “people’s right to know” is that the less the people know, the better off the board is.

Buried on page 12 of the board’s Oct. 13 agenda was the obscure item that read “Be it resolved, the Board of Education approves the memorandum of agreement between the negotiating representatives of the Long Beach Public Schools and the LBCTA, dated October 1, 2009.”

What that translates to is that the board was quietly voting on the largest expenditure of their more than $100 million budget, so that after it is passed they can excuse any tax increases with the time worn phrase “There is nothing we can do about the costs, they are contractual.”

When members of the public asked for copies of the memorandum of agreement, so that they could intelligently discuss this multimillion dollar item on the agenda, they were told that they could only have a copy after the vote.

What reason would a public school board have for denying the public the right to comment on the costliest and most important item they would be voting on for the next four years? The fact that three of the current board members were endorsed during their election by the teacher’s union and then refuse to disclose the agreement certainly does nothing to inspire public trust. The fact that one of those three has had two members of her family hired by the district since she took office in July also does not inspire confidence on fiscal policy.

Whatever the reason, this was the exact situation in which a recent Suffolk County grand jury issued a report citing “an abject lack of transparency regarding the issue for which school districts spend the overwhelming majority of their funds – salaries and benefits for their employees.” The recommendation of the grand jury was that “those contracts be placed on the school district website, if existing, and within the local public libraries and school district offices, at least one month prior to the board of education’s vote upon the contracts or amendments.”

Unfortunately the Long Beach board not only didn’t place the contract where the public could access it a month ahead of time, but actually denied the public the right to look at it at any time before the vote! Bear in mind that this memorandum of agreement will tie up the district for four years at a total estimated cost of 1/3 of a billion dollars, all without a single member of the public being allowed to look at it.

This is not to say that this agreement might not be the best agreement in the world, (not having seen it yet, I can not make such a claim) but at a time when headlines the following day read “High Property taxes top LIers’ worries” and “School tax ‘crushing residents,’” and when Social Security recipients are not getting an increase because the rate of inflation is so low, it is hard to imagine this agreement being to the taxpayer’s benefit.

Unfortunately, this is problem is not unique to Long Beach. Until the public stands up and demands openness and accountability, we will be treated like our pockets are open and endless. Until the public comes out and votes (only one out of every 12 voters came out to vote in the last school board election) special interests will continue to vote themselves raises out of your tax dollars.

There is no question; the complaints about high taxes are there. What is missing is the outrage and the desire to force a change. Or as Walter Kelly’s cartoon character Pogo stated almost 40 years ago, “We Have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Roy Lester is a former trustee of the Long Beach Board of Education. Comments about his column? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.