Keep these meetings open

The governor's Technology Advisory Board is getting an education in open government. As always, that can be a little jarring at first.

But the public's business must be conducted openly, regardless of how uncomfortable people get about discussing things in public. The board's decision last week to send the state's chief information officer on a journey to lawmakers to see about changing the state's open meetings law needs to be snuffed out quickly and decisively.

Sound public policy should not be changed at the whims of a board whose members aren't familiar with the accountability that must accompany the public's business.

We would hope Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who appointed the board, would send it a strong message. Reorganizing all state information technology workers into one new department may be controversial, and it may result in the loss of some jobs. And that is precisely why all deliberations, as well as decisions, have to be made in the open. The workers in question need to hear the candid reasoning behind decisions. Anything less would not silence the controversy. It would, however, lead to rumors and a lack of trust in the process.

About 1,000 state workers handle various aspects of information technology, spread throughout several state departments. The governor wants to move all of them into one department by next July 1 in order to make government more efficient, as he sees it. In the meantime, the state already has decided those employees would no longer be protected by the merit system when they are moved. In exchange, they would receive an increase in pay.

It's not the sort of issue that captivates the interest of the general public. But it is a matter that concerns how taxpayer dollars are spent. And, as Assistant Attorney General Mark Burns told the board, its meetings are required to be open under state law.

From time to time, members of various public bodies, including school boards and city councils, have wished they could air out their ideas or feelings in private, without a reporter sitting nearby. But many others have decided willingly to take a more open path.

For example, if Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon can make his Cabinet meetings open to the public — a decision he made earlier this year even though the law did not require him to do so — we can't imagine why the Technology Advisory Board feels what it is doing is so sensitive it needs to be secret.

In the end, the board's actions will affect lives. There should be no hiding from the steps that lead up to those actions.