Heath Haussamen
When the House Judiciary Committee gave a do-pass recommendation this weekend to a bill that would create a publicly accessible database of financial information from government agencies in New Mexico, it took two steps forward and one step back.
That’s because the committee, before approving the “Sunshine Portal” bill, stripped a provision that would have included employees’ names in the database.
Let me say at the outset that this legislation is excellent, with or without the provision that would include employees’ names in the database. Imagine being able to go online to find, free of charge, detailed, up-to-date state government financial information including tax revenues, agency budgets and investment reports.
No more cumbersome public records requests and delays in receiving information. No more having to pay as much as $1 per page for copies.
But it’s even better if, when looking at lists of employees and the salaries they make, you can see their names, instead of just their titles.
Why? Sarah Welsh, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, has rightly pointed out the appropriate example. The governor has refused to release any information about 59 exempt employees he claims to have laid off in January. Rumors abound that some of these employees were simply transferred to classified positions.
Were names included in such a database, we’d be able to find out whether that’s true.
Transparency is about accessibility and accountability, and the example of the laid-off exempt employees shows how including employee names could discourage funny business.
Public information is public information
But there’s a more basic reason why employee names should be included in the database. State employee names, like the other financial information that would be included in this database, are public information. With the right public records request, you can obtain the name, title and salary of any state employee.
Public information is public information. Period. It’s all equal in New Mexico.
But what the House Judiciary Committee essentially decided to do on Saturday was make a statement that some public information should be more accessible than other public information. That is counter to the spirit of transparency, and it’s a slippery slope.
According to Welsh, who attended Saturday’s hearing, House Majority Leader Ken Martinez, a member of the committee, argued that it would be mean and invasive to include employee names in the database. And committee member Elias Barela said it could lead to agency in-fighting.
Those are bogus arguments. Giving the public easier access to public information isn’t invasive. And because it’s public information, agency employees can already find out how their pay stacks up against others, if they want.
The citizens of New Mexico have a right to know who their tax dollars are paying. That’s why employee names are already public. Including those names in the sunshine portal would make that public information much more accessible.
The bill should be approved – with or without the provision that would include employee names – but I would encourage the House to amend the legislation to add back in the provision that would include employee names in the database.