Deciding on a budget without the details

Last week, the board was given the proposed budget for 2011-12. As you can see here, it is just a short PDF with some explanatory text, a few tables of numbers, and that's it. While it was handed out as the proposed budget and was called the proposed budget, they are now calling it the "budget summary".

No detailed information on where the money in each category is included.

No descriptions of what is included in each category.

Nothing telling how much is going towards instructor salaries/benefits as opposed to administrator salaries/benefits.

Nothing to really give you any information on where this money is going.

While the full version of the budget is hundreds of pages, this short version is what the board (and public) received. It is what the board is supposed to generate questions and comments about with regard to the budget as well as the public. But there is almost nothing there - it adds even more questions to the list rather than decreasing them.

Really?

You mean the board is basing much of what it is doing on these limited numbers without really knowing where the money is going?

Whenever I have seen a budget committee in action - and in the past two decades I have seen plenty - they have always been working with the full budget proposal. The summary would be what was available to the public at the meeting, but the elected officials or budget committee members would have the full budget. I've been to budget committee meetings for school boards, cities, counties, and even once for a community college and I have never seen them this far into the process without the full budget.

I was actually surprised to see the board operating with only this "summary" of the budget. I realize digging through a full budget can be time consuming; however, that is the job of the budget committee. Since the board has not opened up the Budget Committee beyond the board, they've put it on themselves to be the ones to fully vet the budget. It's also their job as the elected board to do their due diligence to make certain our tax dollars, tuition, and fees are spent properly. How can you do that without looking at the details of how our money will be spent?

According to the budget calendar, there will be time for public testimony on May 4 and May 11 and the Budget Committee will vote to approve the budget on May 11. With the full budget still not "available" and not expected to be until May 4, how can anyone really give the budget the time it deserves before it is approved? How can the public really know what is going on when they are given so little information to base their comments upon?

Is this really the best our board and our college can do? Do we really deny access to information in its formative stages just because it isn't in its final draft? Last budget cycle we ran into the same thing - the budget wasn't available until the last moment and when students spoke against parts of the budget, they were told they should have gotten involved in the process earlier. Just how are we supposed to do that? You won't let anyone else on the Budget Committee. You won't release the budget until the last moment. Are we supposed to just guess at what the school is doing and then come in and oppose what we think they're going to do?

When is this process going to become something that shows the public their tax dollars and tuition are going to be treated with respect and spent efficiently, wisely, and appropriately? At a time when Oregon receives an "F" for how lacking in transparency its governmental entities are, we should be striving to become more transparent, not less. Other governmental entities are creating special web sites and making available all types of documents, even when they are in their formative stages. Why is it that MHCC seems to be going in the opposite direction? They can't even be bothered to link the latest budget documents to the area they created on the budget that is linked to the college web site's front page.

Personally, I wouldn't balance my household budget on such limited information. We definitely shouldn't be doing it with a college budget.