NWA EDITORIAL: Lining up votes?

People in public office don't often have transparency as the first concern on their minds.

Getting the job done -- whatever job happens to be the one needing done -- is usually top of mind, and achieving that while respecting the public's right to know is difficult work. In fact, doing the public's business in public is often a headache. Discussion and decisions are much simpler when nobody is watching.

The lure of secrecy in government is strong. Elected officials get frustrated with "inefficiencies" in government and want to operate more along the lines of private business. In government, however, decision-makers get their authority only by grant of the voters who put them into office and they have money to spend only because government taxes their constituents. Elected officials owe their constituents complete transparency in their discussion of public issues and their decisions.

Unfortunately, there's almost never a shortage in Arkansas of public officials dodging the principles of open government.

Northwest Arkansas residents witnessed it in Bethel Heights as that town struggled to face up to its failures to operate a sewage system capable of protecting the environment and residents.

Pope County residents have witnessed a considerable amount of secrecy, in terms of exclusion from critical discussions and behind-closed-door decisions, in the chaotic process of licensing a casino there. A circuit judge even gave county officials legal cover for secret meetings, although a special prosecutor, assisted by the Attorney General's Public Corruption Unit, identified three verifiable illegal meetings on the casino effort.

Now comes the Washington County Quorum Court, which is made up of 15 elected justices of the peace responsible each year for determining how millions of dollars are spent for county operations.

The Quorum Court is made up of Republicans and Democrats. They represent urban districts and rural districts. They approach government with a variety of governing philosophies.

Maybe for all of these reasons, Washington County's Quorum Court seems to struggle every year, more so than their colleagues in other counties, to build the next year's budget through a process anyone is happy with.

Oh, we know: Mention government budgets and eyes may glaze over. Rest assured we won't bore today with an onslaught of numbers. We can say this, though: Because they control where money is spent, budgets represent the life blood of any governmental endeavor. Budgeting establishes what priorities will be. Public policy for which there is no funding may as well be hung on a roll in a bathroom stall. Money is how government gets things done.

The Quorum Court's responsibility is to know where the money is being spent and ensure full-time elected officials who spend it aren't going astray with the taxpayers' dollars.

Almost two weeks ago, the Quorum Court began its budget discussions with several members already frustrated. Again, it seemed disorganized and lacking a process the entire group found acceptable.

When the panel regrouped this past week for budget discussions, before them was a new proposal by Justice of the Peace Sam Duncan, who argues for minimizing the Quorum Court's role in evaluating planned spending for offices such as the county judge, sheriff, assessor, collector, county clerk, county prosecutor, public defender, circuit courts and others.

"They are adults. They are duly elected," JP Patrick Deakins agreed with Duncan at last week's budget meeting. "They want more freedom in what they can do within their budgets than to bring line items in here and us go through them one by one and attack them for whatever political purposes or personal vendettas we might have. I want to skip all that."

In other words (ours), he'd like a kinder, gentler experience for county officials.

To achieve that, Duncan's proposal would simplify (overly so, in our view) the process by just granting all those offices authority to spend a certain percentage of the $44 million of expected revenue for 2021. And somehow, mixed in Duncan's proposed ordinance setting up that approach, he grants a $500,000 "emergency fund" to the control of County Judge Joseph Wood.

The oddity of Duncan's proposal is how it was presented: It showed up at last week's meeting with seven co-sponsors -- Justices of the Peace Ann Harbison, Shawndra Washington, Lance Johnson, Patrick Deakins, Butch Pond, Lisa Ecke and Judith Yanez.

Given that theses Quorum Court members, according to longstanding open government precedent, cannot meet without public notice, how in the world could eight of them come to an agreement on a proposed ordinance that's never seen the light of day?

Several of them said they didn't meet, but spoke to someone in the county judge's office by phone. Duncan said he didn't know of any co-sponsors until he received an agenda packet for last week's meeting. But he said he appreciated County Attorney Brian Lester and others in the county judge's office who were able to share the ordinance and get the co-sponsors.

Keep in mind that public business isn't supposed to be done behind the scenes. The city of Fort Smith years ago got into legal trouble for lining up support for a measure through the city administrator's office.

In the case of the Quorum Court, it would take eight of the 15 votes to make a proposed ordinance into law. Is it even plausible to argue that sponsors aren't the same as votes? How can the county judge's office line up sponsors one by one without essentially rigging the outcome before the public has even had a chance to know the details of an ordinance?

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[DROPCAP]This approach is counter to the very idea of open and transparent governance in the best interests of the public the Quorum Court and the county judge's office are supposed to serve. The budgeting system the ordinance would create sounds exactly like what an executive branch office that doesn't care for Quorum Court oversight would draft.

Want to run county government like a business? We don't know of many businesses that give a department head a blank check with no responsibility for justifying expenses.

When one is charged with spending other people's money, oversight is critical to ensuring its best and appropriate use.

That the proposal is being pursued with some behind-the-scenes deal-making makes it even more suspect.

We respect the goal of formalizing an organized plan for developing the budget, but not at the expense of Quorum Court oversight that seeks to understand where money is being spent and why.

That's the job of the Quorum Court, no matter how much some justices of the peace may want to turn it over to someone else.