Info-tech panel wants closed-door meetings

A panel appointed by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to advise state government on establishing a single information technology department has decided they'd be more effective if they didn't have to hold all their discussions in public.

So members of the Technology Advisory Board voted unanimously at their second meeting Wednesday to see if there's a way they can talk behind closed doors about the impact the new department will have on state employees.

Utah law does permit public meetings to be closed to discuss the character, competency or health of an employee. At issue Wednesday, however, was the more general topic of how discussions about the consolidation were being received.

"We're going through an organizational transformation," board member Martin Frey of the Governor's Office of Economic Development said, warning of a "significant impact" if the state's plans are heard about in the "wrong way."

Ed Eckstrom of vSpring Capital, who represents the business community on the board, said some discussions in public would create "more controversy and conflict" and prevent members from helping the state sort out the issues surrounding the new department.

The board voted to send the state's chief information officer, Stephen Fletcher, to meet with lawmakers to see what could be done — even after they were told the open meetings law meant they had to hold discussions about the reorganization in public.

That information was provided by Assistant Attorney General Mark Burns, who also said that conducting its business in public would reflect better on the board. Members who weren't ready to get to work, he said, could withdraw from the board.

Fletcher had asked Burns to explain to the board that they were covered by the open meetings law. The chief information officer told members that just about anything they'd discuss could have an adverse affect on employee morale.

The governor's proposal to move all of the state's nearly 1,000 information technology workers into a single department by July 1, 2006, is controversial. Huntsman has said it will make government more efficient.

But workers worry jobs will be lost. The state has already asked them to give up their merit status and become at-will employees when they become part of the new department at the beginning of next year, promising a pay increase in exchange.