More interesting is the first comment on the article. It is by the now former Speaker of the Senate of the WSA. He is fanatically opposed to the concept.
He starts by objecting that the website would cost too much money. This objection has been shown to be bogus by the states that have implemented such a system. He also argues that such a system would hurt Western's competition with other universities. Isn't it possible that some potential students might be impressed by a university committed to transparency in its spending?
With these red herrings out of the way, he gets to his real objection: elitism. How dare ordinary people want to know how the university spends its money? Who do those rubes think they are? Don't they know what's good for them?
He asks how average people can evaluate spending by administrators. While the average citizen may know less than the average administration bureaucrat, there are plenty of citizens who do know something: faculty, legislators, businessmen, contractors, rival contractors, accountants, lawyers, and plenty of others who may be knowledgeable on some particular aspect of university spending. This is the error of socialists: An individual expert may know more than an individual citizen, but the citizens together know far more than the experts.
Doubtless there will be some things that citizens won't understand. Let them ask questions. If there are reasonable explanations, the university can provide them. If not, the administration may be forced to save taxpayers money.
He concludes:
The university does a great job at spending money effectively and efficiently while always keeping in mind the research and educational mission of the university. Both the administration and the board of trustees examines where money is going and if that is what is best for the students and well being of WMU.What a relief! It turns out that the university didn't hire Judy Bailey, give away a million dollars, spend another half a million settling with Bailey, agree to take a building that cost two million a year to operate, pay professors an average of $136,000 dollars per year, and repair the damage when Judy Bailey broke a window in her house when she locked her keys inside (and that's just the ones we know about over the last two years). They always spend our money effectively. Always!
Then there's the Sangren Hall parking lot, which was covered with snow for the last five months, when it wasn't baking over the summer. How dare anyone want to park there?
Ironically, the author of this comment was convicted unanimously by the WSA Judicial Council for flagrantly and willfully violating the WSA Constitution. Why wouldn't he want transparency in government?
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