Re “Will county voters believe truth or ‘alternative facts’?” (June 28): The Union-Tribune’s editorial on the county charter reform debate blurs an important distinction about what “independent” means.
The proposed budget analyst and program auditor aren’t intended to be independent of our elected Board of Supervisors. They’re intended to be independent of the county bureaucracy whose budgets and programs they’re reviewing.
Today, supervisors often have to rely on information prepared by the very departments they’re responsible for overseeing. That’s not the best way to ensure accountability. No organization within the government bureaucracy should rely solely on people grading their own homework.
An independent budget analyst and program auditor would provide supervisors — and the public — with objective information outside the normal county chain of command. That doesn’t diminish the board’s authority; it gives elected officials better information to do the job voters elected them to do.
Independent from the bureaucracy. Accountable to the public. That is real reform.
— Wendy Gelernter, Pacific Beach