At stake is millions — or sometimes billions — of your dollars. Well, it’s not all yours; it belongs to you and your neighbors and the good people of Spokane and Walla Walla and Kahlotus. Yet none of you will have any idea how it is being spent until you are handed the bill.
Sounds absurd, right? But that is the effective impact of secrecy surrounding state government negotiations with labor unions. Later this year, officials will begin bargaining over labor pacts for the 2017-19 biennium. These agreements will go to the Legislature for an up-or-down vote — no amendments allowed — and then will be folded into the state budget for the next two years. Citizens, meanwhile, will have no idea of what salaries and benefits are included for state workers until the budget is signed into law.
This process is anathema to the notion of accountable, open government. And it brings to mind a memorable and applicable quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a president and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.” To paraphrase, the ultimate rulers are not public-employee unions and state negotiators — and the Legislature should take steps to limit the power they wield.
Last week, House Bill 2490 was introduced to remedy this overabundance of secrecy, with the proposal declaring that “collective bargaining sessions with employee organizations involving contract negotiations must be open the public.” This echoes similar proposed legislation from recent years — legislation that has failed to gain traction and has kept negotiations with public-employee unions exempt from the state’s Public Records Act.