Recent editorials published in Indiana newspapers

The (Munster) Times. March 17, 2017

Tech tools hasten government transparency

Technology provides ever-growing opportunities for government transparency.

Local government agencies should seize upon every opportunity to harness inexpensive digital tools in furthering open government.

As national Sunshine Week draws to a close, we call upon Northwest Indiana government agencies to consider two new approaches to transparency: live-streaming public meetings on social media and satisfying more public records request in a digital format.

Live-streaming

People familiar with Facebook already might be aware of a feature known as Facebook Live.

The feature allows for live and recorded video to be posted on social media sites.

It's the perfect tool for broadcasting public meetings on city, town and county social media pages, bringing government proceedings directly to constituents whose schedules may no allow attending public meetings in person.

The Lake County Council already is exploring live-streaming its public meetings and could vote on the matter as early as next month.

It costs virtually nothing. Any smartphone or mobile tablet can be set up on a nearby table to capture video of the meetings.

In live-streaming mode, the video goes live to a social media feed where more people can be engaged in the process of government.

When the meeting is over, the video can then be posted to the respective government body's social media site where the public can access it for further review.

This process is a technological no-brainer for openness in government.

Digital records

Nearly all government records are - or should be - stored electronically.

Municipal or county expense reports, budgets, spending line items, spreadsheets, databases, emails and meeting minutes all must be typed into a computer at some point, meaning they're stored digitally.

When members of the press or public at-large request public records, Region local government must resolve to offer the information in digital format.

More information can be transferred with fewer resources when it's stored onto a disc, thumb drive or deposited on a server.

For example, consider a Freedom of Information Act request for a year's worth of city council expense reports. These could number in the thousands of pages.

Countless reams of paper could be saved, as well as man hours for copying the information, if the information were provided on computer disc or drive.

Reasonable public records requests should not cause undue expense for citizens or the government agencies of record. Satisfying public records requests in a digital format is a cheap method for furthering transparency.

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The (Bloomington) Herald-Times. March 16, 2017

Small towns nearly shut out of Hoosier Hysteria

Something is happening this year that should irk those who can't quite get over breaking the historic all-comers Indiana High School Athletic Association basketball tournament into classes.

A reasonable justification for the change two decades ago was to give kids from small towns a chance to play for a basketball championship. This year, that's simply not happening.

A majority of teams playing in the smallest-school division are not from small towns. Of the four teams playing in the Class A semistates this year, one is from Indianapolis (Tindley), one from Gary (21st Century), and one from Lafayette (Central Catholic). The only team from a small community is New Washington (pop. 566).

That can't be what the framers had in mind when they dismantled the best high school basketball tournament in the nation. It's time for the IHSAA to take another look.

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South Bend Tribune. March 16, 2017

Making sure tobacco prevention still matters

The state legislature has decided to scale back plans to hike the cigarette tax as a way to pay for improvements to Indiana's crumbling roads.

The Indiana House had proposed increasing the tax by $1 per pack to help pay for Indiana's infrastructure improvement plan. But after some stiff resistance from industry groups and fellow Republicans in the state Senate, there is talk of scaling the proposal back to 60 cents a pack, a more acceptable compromise for lawmakers.

There are other measures being considered to pay for road improvements, including a 10-cent tax increase on a gallon of gas - maybe more for diesel fuel - and potentially a $15 increase in the cost of registering a vehicle.

The idea of a tax increase is reprehensible to many in the Republican-controlled General Assembly, but the state has run out of options to pay for improvements.

All this talk about cigarette taxes prompted us to recall past legislative discussions about another pot of tobacco-related money.

There was a time when Indiana devoted large amounts of the money it received from the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement to pay for smoking prevention and cessation programs. As recently as 2008, the state spent $16 million toward those efforts. Unfortunately, over the years that tobacco money has been raided for other uses to a point where last year only $5.9 million was spent on prevention.

Indiana has the nation's 12th highest smoking rate, with tobacco claiming 11,000 lives annually. There was a time when lawmakers spent millions to prove their commitment to helping Hoosiers kick the habit and improve their health.

Good roads are critical in maintaining a healthy Indiana economy. But legislators should not lose sight of an equally important health issue facing Hoosiers and the lack of funding devoted to meeting the challenge.

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The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. March 17, 2017

Michigan smart to skip school grades

Michigan policymakers made a wise decision this week to drop plans to assign A-F grades to schools. "More damage than good" would come from the system, a Republican member of the Michigan State Board of Education said.

He could have had Indiana's experience with A-F grades in mind. Hoosiers haven't been well served by the broken grading system. Parents and taxpayers who want to know about Indiana public schools will find the best information in the schools' annual performance reports. The reports for Fort Wayne Community Schools, East Allen County Schools and Southwest Allen County Schools will be published in The Journal Gazette later this month. Northwest Allen County Schools' report is published in the Northwest News.

Performance reports give a much more complete picture than a simple letter grade. The reports show demographic information, enrollment, per-pupil expenditures and graduation rates. There's information on the percentage of students taking Advanced Placement exams and the salary range for teachers. State averages are provided as well.

In all, there are 29 measures beyond a district letter grade available on performance reports, plus separate reports available for each school within a district.

If you want to know how your neighborhood school and district are doing, forget the letter grade - check out the performance report.

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