🪶 LADY BUDGETDOWN'S SOCIETY PAPERS
On the Conduct of Public Officials
Dearest Readers,
Lady Budgetdown has never expected universal agreement. Society would be dreadfully dull if everyone danced to the same tune.
Disagreement is healthy.
Questions are healthy.
Even spirited debate has its place.
What Lady Budgetdown did not expect was that asking questions about a proposal requesting millions of taxpayer dollars would be met, not with answers, but with nicknames.
The President of the Rochester Community Schools Board recently addressed Lady Budgetdown with the following greeting:
"Dear Pompous Pontificator: You frame this millage as a cost whereas I call it an investment in the greater good of society..."
How delightfully theatrical.
Yet Lady Budgetdown found herself less interested in the title than in what followed... Or rather, what did not.
For you see, dear readers, calling something an investment is not the same as explaining why it is a wise one.
Where were the measurable goals?
Where were the benchmarks?
Where was the explanation of how taxpayers might determine whether this "investment" had fulfilled its promise?
Lady Budgetdown searched the reply most diligently.
She found a sentiment.
She found confidence.
She even found a rather colorful nickname.
But she never found the answers.
One cannot help but wonder when requesting accountability became more controversial than providing it.
Public officials are, of course, under no obligation to agree with every citizen. But surely they are under some obligation to answer sincere questions with more than clever phrases.
Leadership is not measured by how one responds to applause. Leadership is measured by how one responds to scrutiny.
And when those entrusted with the public purse choose wit over explanation, one is left to wonder whether the questions were ever the true inconvenience.
Until the next ball...
Lady Budgetdown
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