If you’ve made it as far as the classified pages in the back of the Daily Reporter the past few weeks, you probably have noticed a number of public-notice advertisements that listed 2019 financial information for various governmental units in Hancock County.
These annual reports — required by law to be shared with the public via these widely circulated notices — exemplify transparency and accountability. They show how your tax dollars were spent, and they provide an inkling of whether elected officials have been good stewards with public funds.
And yet, forces in the Indiana General Assembly tried again this year, as they have for the past several legislative sessions, to restrict the public’s access to vital information found every day in the public notices in the back of the newspaper. This year, a bill would have allowed school districts to water down publication of their annual performance reports, which are a trove of data on everything from graduation rates to suspensions and expulsions. Fortunately, the bill didn’t pass.
These and similar efforts to weaken transparency are why Sunshine Week, an annual observance to promote the importance of unfettered information, is so important.
We celebrate this week because we believe the public’s right to know is one of our keystone values. It’s why our reporters attend county commissioner meetings and write stories about how much a new jail is going to cost. It’s why we attend school board meetings to detail plans for expensive school renovations. It’s why we publish the name of every person who is booked into the county jail, because taking away a person’s liberty is a grave responsibility that must be exercised with the utmost discretion.
Beyond that day-to-day vigilance, our reporters are making sure agencies and officials are doing their best to follow the state’s sunshine statutes — the Open Door Law and the Access to Public Records Act. Officeholders receive surprisingly little guidance on these important laws, and it’s often left to others to point out when public servants fall short of them. In 2019, for example, the Hancock County Council — choosing convenience over transparency — quietly voted to raise taxes at a meeting that had been convened without proper notice to the public. When a reporter pointed this out, the council was forced to hold a new vote at a properly advertised meeting where the public could be present to witness it.
Without these efforts, powerful people would have no accountability. That is one of the essences of democracy, and a well-informed populace is its best defense.
Sunshine Week might sound like a journalist’s holiday, but really, it’s all about you. And your right to know. Join us in celebrating this important right.
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