Transparency has become a popular buzzword among municipal councils these days. It’s a word that’s trotted out every time a municipality provides some basic financial information to the community they serve through obligatory reporting requirements, like the reporting of council remuneration.
Perhaps the proliferation of the word’s usage is linked to the advent of the Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act, which has worked it’s way through the legislative system and became law in December of 2014.
Whatever the reason, if transparency is to become more than a buzzword, councils will need to apply it a little more realistically moving forward.
Ironically, the advent of “transparency” has co-incided with the implementation of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (known cynically in journalism circles at the Freedom From Information Act), with emphasis at the municipal level, it often seems, on the “privacy” element.
It’s understandable, even perhaps proper, that a municipal council would be reluctant to discuss details of, and reasons for, an employee’s termination. While municipal books need to be open for accounting purposes and matters of genuine public interest, there should be some basic levels of privacy afforded even those who work on the public dime. However, that shouldn’t extend to simple confirmation that an employee was terminated.
To say that an employee who has been terminated is “no longer with” an organization has become the norm from municipalities in recent years. While this type of vauge explanation is fine for casual inquiries on the telephone or at the front counter, it hardly hits the standard of “transparency” for the purposes of official communication to taxpayers through the media.
Termination of municipal employees carries with it financial implications for taxpayers in terms of severance and other costs, particularly when dealing with long-term Sunshine List staffers. It’s at the very least disingenuous to allow it to appear they may have left of their own accord, or perhaps just disappeared.
