Hold UK's budget negotiations @ center court

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The Lexington Herald-Leader rightly calls for more openness in the University of Kentucky's budget meetings. (They could also have added the need for more openness in the General Assembly's budget process.)Budget negotiations -- whether at the capitol or in a university board room often get complicated and messy, which is precisely the explanation that the university cites for setting the school’s budget behind closed doors. Trustees, they argue, handle complex budget issues better behind closed doors and out of the purview of the taxpaying public.

(Interestingly, state legislative leaders have used the same argument for the secrecy that still remains in the conference committee portion of the state budget process -- when the final and most important decisions are made... behind closed doors with an armed guard to keep out not only journalists and pesky free-market staff members but even presumably other legislators who may not happen to be conference committee members, as well.)

But publicly funded institutions like the University of Kentucky with its $3 billion budget supported largely by tax and tuition dollars have the right to know not only the final outcome of budget discussions but also to see the discussions that occur in real time.

Kentucky taxpayers and families sacrificing to fund their students' education have the right to know how trustees recently arrived at their decision to raise tuition by another 5 percent? In fact, the higher the tuition and the greater the spending, the more incumbent it is on trustees to open these budget meetings to those paying the bills.

The only way such access shouldn't be provided to taxpayers is when the university stops accepting their dollars... which isn't likely to happen any time soon.

Elaina Waters, BIPPS intern