The right decision

Editorial


The right decision

February 03, 2010 - 7:18 am



The words of New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick should be cast in bronze and hung in every town and city hall and posted in every government agency.

"Public access can expose corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, prejudice and favoritism . . . In short, knowing how a public body is spending taxpayer money in conducting public business is essential to the transparency of government, the very purpose underlying the Right-to-Know Law," Broderick wrote in a decision ordering the New Hampshire Local Government Center to provide records sought by the state's professional firefighters association.

The center, which manages the health insurance premiums of municipal employees and provides a host of other services to cities and towns, had refused for eight years to provide information the firefighters believed might prove that the center was using employee insurance premium funds for other purposes.

The center, citing the need to protect proprietary information, refused to provide the information the firefighters sought. It declined to provide its staff's salaries on the grounds that they didn't perform essential government services. But the workers are paid with public money, said the court, which rightly disagreed.

"Public access to specific salary information gives direct insight into the operations of the public body by enabling scrutiny of the wages paid for particular job titles, " Broderick wrote. It is only through "direct insight" that taxpayers can decide whether their money is being spent wisely or squandered. Which is why the court was unanimous in upholding the Right-to-Know Law.


http://concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100203/OPINION/2030322/1027/OPINION01