More openness needed, not less

In a classic blame-the-messenger move, the secretaries of Delaware’s Department of Labor and Department of Finance say media outlets conflated incidents and contributed to some confusion when they reported that $180,000 was missing from the state’s unemployment trust fund.

The state auditor says the result of those news reports caused some misunderstandings among the Delaware public.

Misunderstanding is the sister of misinformation and cousin to disinformation – terms overly used by government officials to discredit anyone who questions policy.

The letters sent by Department of Labor Secretary Karryl Hubbard, Secretary of Finance Rick Geisenberger and State Auditor Lydia York send a chilling message that policy should never be challenged, particularly by the news media.

As members of the news media, we wholeheartedly disagree.

More openness is needed these days, not less. More transparency of how state or federal money is spent or where it is going is mandatory for a public to have trust in its government.

There are millions of dollars flowing into the state from the federal government, and according to an independent auditing report, very little oversight by officials tasked with keeping an eye on the funds. The unemployment insurance fund is a small slice of the overall state pie of funding.

The independent auditor also noted issues with the Medicaid fund, which has about $2 billion in state and federal funds.

The $180,000 embezzled by a former employee of the unemployment office may be just the tip of the iceberg.

More scrutiny is needed on why the embezzlement was never disclosed, but it is also needed to see if the billions of dollars spent by other departments are on the up-and-up.

Department heads should not have a problem with members of the news media doing their jobs. Such officials just need to do their own.