Local/New Hampshire Politics:

Need for Transparency

Need for Transparency

Need for Transparency

I am sorry to say that my faith in our Board of Selectmen has been diminished. Before 1993 it was our practice to provide a Selectmen’s Report as a supplement within the Town Report. A clear and concise summary of how our tax dollars were spent was included in that report. It listed the annual salaries of every town employee and elected official. Since 1994, voters have been denied specific salary and expense information; the budget has become increasingly difficult to make sense of because generalized accounting masks much of the detail.

In an effort to shed more light on how our tax dollars were being spent, I asked the selectmen in the fall of 2008 to once again publish the town employee salary information in the Town Report. The Board of Selectmen verbally agreed to include it in the 2008 report. Unbeknownst to me, the selectmen subsequently changed their minds, and did not publish the requested information. In the fall of 2009, I repeated my request verbally, as well as in writing. I then received a letter from the Board of Selectmen agreeing to publish complete salary information in the 2009 Town Report. They have not, however, indicated how this information will be presented.

To further cloud the issue, a town resident recently had to use RSA 91-A (Right to Know Law) as authority to obtain specific budget information from the selectmen’s office. The selectmen produced the information, and in review, there appears to be some inconsistencies in how compensation has been reported. Discrepancies in some salaries have raised questions. In light of the selectmen having done away with the town’s annual performance and salary review procedures, it is difficult to understand how salary adjustments are decided. The selectmen have discarded what appeared to be a useful tool.

My confidence in the selectmen has been tempered in light of the vagueness of their proceedings and an unexpected lack of responsiveness when their policies and practices are called into question. The voters’ ultimate means to deal with such conduct is, of course, the ballot box. It is my opinion that it will be very difficult to undo the result of many years of mismanagement.

Henry F. Lewandowski, Jr.
East Kingston