The Budget Forum is Dying

Ever since November, I've been observing and occasionally contributing to a forum at Lane Community College regarding the development of the next budget. It's built on a WordPress platform and works nicely on a technical basis. Unfortunately, it has run dry. Since the middle of December, there have been virtually no new posts.

This is not because the budget is settled. On the contrary, the meat of the budget development season is just now starting. So why is the blog dead? Simply because it was entirely one-sided. People offered their views. The administration, we are led to believe, received those views. But there was no response.

There's a limit to how long you can continue with this sort of one-way communication. All the evidence is that Lane doesn't particularly enjoy outside input, but feel compelled to pretend that they do by having hearings, public input, and so forth. But the key question is responsiveness. I think the process is handled much more professionally now that Greg Morgan is involved as AVP of Finance, but there hasn't been much improvement in the basically secretive practice of producing the budget. There are still months to go, and this could be a very interesting period as the consequences of past irresponsibility come to light. But I'd have to be very optimistic to think that there's going to be an open and respectful process that includes the views of the general public.

Of course, it may be due to the isolation of being on the Oregon Coast and out if the action.