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A matter of open record
Posted By katie allison granju
Yesterday’s release of the draft audit of p-card spending in the Ragsdale administration is an important reminder of why the press and the public need open access to government records. WBIR’s News Director (and my boss), Bill Shory has written a commentary on why WBIR chose to push for the release of the p-card draft audit:
For the past nine months, there have been serious questions about how Knox County taxpayer money has been spent. For most of that time, state and local auditors have been combing through receipts and records, determining who spent what, how it was documented, and if any rules were broken.
On Monday, we learned that the auditors’ report was complete. But while the Mayor’s office expected to see a copy on Friday, they told us the public wouldn’t see the report until much later - after they had compiled lengthy responses, and auditors responded in turn.
It was unclear if the public would ever see that back-and-forth. The final report of the last audit of the County Mayor’s Office–the one focusing on travel allowances–differed significantly from the preliminary draft.
It not only included the Mayor’s responses, but the auditor’s own language had been softened–apparently under pressue from the Mayor’s office.
The process of draft-response-final report is apparently standard accounting procedure.
However, it is our position that this process should play out in public, as it has in the past.
The resolution to this issue is too important to be hammered out in back rooms, away from the eye of the public.
Feb 29th, 2008
