Part of government's cost of doing business is letting its constituents know which new laws are being considered for passage.

Many legislators would eliminate this advertising if they could and frequently introduce bills with this objective in mind. Officials treat this important public disclosure as an expensive and unnecessary part of doing the commonwealth's or municipalities' business.The Pennsylvania News Media Association has come out forcefully against a bill that would reduce transparency on important issues under the disguise of saving money. It is a nasty case of penny-wise and pound-foolish, because if this bill were to pass it would eliminate public scrutiny of important pending legislation.At the heart of this matter are intermunicipal agreements between local governments for anything from police coverage, fire protection, management contracts and lots more.These matters involve millions of dollars that the taxpayers should know about before the fact, not afterward. After all, it is their money that lawmakers are spending in these decisions. At the very least, we should know in advance what they have in mind.The way it works now is local governing bodies must pass ordinances (local laws) to trigger intermunicipal agreements. Before this can happen, these local governments must notify the public through legal advertising.The bill before the state House of Representatives would change the law and allow local governments to establish intergovernmental agreements by resolution rather than by ordinance. Resolutions do not require advance advertising to the public. This would mean that a governing body can take action, but the public would be aware of it only when the resolution was disclosed - too late to do anything about it.Without advance notice, residents would be denied the opportunity to react or comment on these matters until after they were put into force. This is not the way open government is designed to work.We suppose this nondisclosure is fine for intermunicipal agreements for the purchase of road materials, such as sand and salt, where buying in quantity saves all participating communities money.But House Bill 1893 would allow for major undertakings, such as the consolidation or elimination of police departments, the creation of regional planning commissions, sewer regionalization and even municipal consolidation to be dealt with through resolutions instead of ordinances."These agreements can have dramatic, far-reaching impacts on communities, and must not be entered into lightly or without public notice," PNA said in a statement of opposition.We concur with the organization in calling for the adoption of amendments clarifying that resolutions contemplated in this legislation are not to be used for agreements with significant effects on their communities.State Rep. Paul Schemel, R-Franklin, the original sponsor, has come back with proposed amendments, which make perfectly good sense and a reasonable compromise. The state House Local Government Committee approved this trio of amendments, which will now be taken up by the full House."This common-sense legislation makes it easier, faster and cheaper for our local governments to work together," said Schemel, who added amendments to his original bill, which require that a council of governments, consortium or similar entity must be created through ordinance, not merely a resolution.The bill must also specify that any regionalization of services or employees, such as regionalization of police forces or fire companies, may be created only by ordinance.We taxpayers must be constantly vigilant for these blatant attempts to shut out the public from the legislative process. Lawmakers need frequent reminders that they work for us, not the other way around.Part of this unwritten contract between them and us is that they will keep us fully informed and will go the extra mile to let us know in a formal way what they are considering.By Bruce Frassinelli |

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