{"id":12895,"date":"2010-02-12T08:29:24","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T15:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=12895"},"modified":"2010-02-12T10:02:36","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T17:02:36","slug":"a-jailbreak-for-public-information-and-cost-savings-to-boot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/a-jailbreak-for-public-information-and-cost-savings-to-boot\/","title":{"rendered":"A jailbreak for public information, and cost savings to boot"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sarah Welsh<\/p><\/div>\n

Information is power, and right now the public has none. Legislators and the public are rightfully outraged at\u00a0Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s ongoing refusal<\/a> to release information about his exempt state employees, including 59 positions that were supposedly cut last month.<\/p>\n

What little information has emerged isn\u2019t good \u2013 employees who were merely reclassified as non-exempt, or who were shuffled from agency to agency despite inadequate qualifications.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is only one outrage in a series of battles over access to public information, about everything from Medicaid fraud to state investment deals. Bureaucracies may be inherently secretive, but this administration has gone much further than routine evasion or delay tactics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a blatant snub of the public\u2019s right to know.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s gotten pretty bad, but there is hope.\u00a0 We have a simple tonic in hand: Senate Bill 195<\/a>, sponsored by Republican Sen. Sander Rue<\/a> and championed by Democratic\u00a0Lt. Gov.\u00a0Diane Denish<\/a>. This simple, straightforward bill would create an online \u201cSunshine Portal\u201d that would publish detailed, up-to-date financial information from\u00a0state government \u2013 tax\u00a0revenues, agency budgets with monthly expenditures, investment reports and more.<\/p>\n

The online database would be free and searchable. It would include the salaries of all state employees and an open-meetings tracker. If we had it in place now, we could track down the mysterious 59 by close of business today.<\/p>\n

Even in the absence of active obstruction, providing online data is the right thing to do. For those who have access to the Internet, an online sunshine portal could significantly ease the long, tedious process of requesting and inspecting public records. The\u00a0New Mexico Foundation\u00a0for Open Government<\/a> fought to put that process into law, but we\u2019ll be the first to admit that it\u2019s time-consuming and often difficult for both public employees and citizens. Hunting down and copying paper records takes time and money.<\/p>\n

For this and other reasons, the\u00a0Legislative Finance Committee\u00a0has estimated that an online sunshine portal could actually save the state money. The committee\u2019s fiscal analysis<\/a> states it plainly:<\/p>\n

\u201cThree of the states that have had a transparency portal\/website (Texas, Missouri and Kansas) report savings from consolidating purchases, revising their business model, avoiding duplicate studies and contracts, renegotiating existing contracts or subscriptions and not having to respond to freedom of information requests\u00a0because the information is readily available and free. Additionally, the portal provided lawmakers information about spending that they could then use to ask agencies probing questions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This important reform is within reach.\u00a0The Senate\u00a0has already done its part \u2013 the sunshine portal passed that body by a vote of 38-0. Now it\u2019s before the\u00a0House Judiciary Committee. From there it\u2019s on to House Appropriations and the House floor.<\/p>\n

The clock is running, but there\u2019s still plenty of time if lawmakers want to make this happen.<\/p>\n

So say it with me now: We\u2019re mad as hell, and we\u2019re not going to take this anymore. I urge the House to pass SB195 and send it to the governor\u2019s desk. It has been said that government transparency is like mother and apple pie \u2013 no one wants to go on record against it. Let\u2019s give them a chance to prove it.<\/p>\n

Welsh is the executive director of the New Mexico Foundation\u00a0for Open Government.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Information is power, and right now the public has none about the governor\u2019s exempt employees. But there is hope, if the House will do its part and pass legislation that would create an online \u201cSunshine Portal\u201d that would publish detailed, up-to-date financial information from state government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":594,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[111,107],"class_list":["post-12895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-open-government","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/594"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}