Lately Byrnes Mill officials and staff members have decided to keep information about the city’s dealings as close to the vest as possible.
The trend started in early June when the Leader struggled to get information from Byrnes Mill about staffing changes at its City Hall and Recycling Center. After that, it was a challenge to get information from Byrnes Mill about a piece of property it purchased and later annexed.
The latest example of Byrnes Mill’s secrecy involved its newly adopted budget.
One of the most important jobs journalists have is letting the public know how local governmental bodies are using their tax dollars. The Leader takes that responsibility seriously and has been busy over the past couple of months writing stories about the latest budgets for the De Soto, Fox, Hillsboro and Windsor school districts, among others.
The Leader published a story about Byrnes Mill’s new budget in last week’s West Side Leader. Unfortunately, that story lacked lots of details typically included in budget stories, primarily because city officials and staff refused to answer questions.
It was disappointing to see them put a lid on information that they had provided in the past and that other governmental bodies readily share.
The Missouri Sunshine Law, which was enacted more than five decades ago, requires governmental bodies to conduct their business in the open and provide access to public records.
The law is important because it helps journalists and others keep Missourians informed about what’s going on in their state, county, city or township.
Most of the boards that oversee governmental bodies in Jefferson County operate openly and cooperate with Leader reporters and staff, returning phone calls and emails promptly and providing documents and answering questions. That helps the Leader accomplish its mission to provide important community news to its readers and it helps the governmental bodies get their messages out to their constituents.
When the Leader began gathering information for the story about Byrnes Mill’s budget, Rob Kiczenski, the city’s mayor, did not respond to calls, text messages and emails from the newspaper asking about it, and neither did Melinda Benedict, who was named the city administrator in May. She is the fourth person to serve in that role since 2022 when former City Administrator Debbie LaVenture announced her impending retirement.
The Leader eventually sent a Sunshine Law request to Byrnes Mill asking for a copy of the budget documents and answers to a list of questions about the budget and other city business.
The following is Benedict’s response to that request: “I have received and reviewed your attached request for ‘answers.’ Pursuant to Missouri law, no responsive ‘record’ exists. This request is considered complete.”
The city’s newfound secrecy comes not long after the hiring of attorney, Craig H. Smith, in March 2023 after the Robert K. Sweeney law firm resigned from representing the city. At the same time, previous city attorney Allison Sweeney filed a complaint claiming wrongdoing in the city’s Police Department and Municipal Court.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office investigated and concluded there were some irregularities but nothing that prompted it to seek criminal charges.
After Byrnes Mill’s response, or lack of response, to the Leader’s recent Sunshine request, I questioned Kiczenski about the city’s refusal to cooperate, and he said I needed to talk to Smith, the city attorney. Kiczenski would not provide the attorney’s phone number at that time but said he’d have Smith call me.
A few days later, Smith called and told me that city officials and staff are not obligated to talk to Leader reporters or answer any of their questions, adding that the city was only required to provide specific documents, and only if they already existed, ignoring the fact that the Leader did indeed ask for a specific document that existed – the budget document. The budget had been approved in late June and the budget summary was posted to the Byrnes Mill website after the city received the Leader’s Sunshine request but before the city responded to that request saying no record existed.
In a last-ditch effort to get the budget information the Leader needed, I attended the Aug. 7 Byrnes Mill Board of Alderpersons meeting and asked the board members if they’d answer some questions about the budget, and they would not either. The next day I sent an email to the one board member who was absent from that meeting, asking for his help, and he didn’t reply.
Stories about budgets can be complex to report and write, but most of the local governmental bodies the Leader deals with try to make the job as easy as possible, providing quick access to budget documents and having officials or staffers willing to answer questions about details not included in those documents.
For example, while Byrnes Mill’s budget document includes a list of projected expenditures for the year, including the amount of money the city expects to spend on employee salaries, it doesn’t say if that expenditure included pay raises for employees. That was one of the follow-up questions the Leader asked and hoped would be answered.
The Byrnes Mill budget also lists an expenditure for street improvements, but it doesn’t indicate what specific projects those funds will cover, and officials didn’t answer a question about that either.
Another important question reporters typically ask when writing about a budget is how much money the governmental body has in reserves – the funds not earmarked for any particular expense, like the savings account you and I may have.
Based on the limited information Byrnes Mill officials and staff provided the Leader, it’s unclear if the city has any money at all in reserves, and if it does, how much.
There have been signs the city may be experiencing some financial problems. Officials have repeatedly talked about closing the Recycling Center, primarily because of the cost to operate it.
City officials also have talked about being short on staff, and it appears city employees have not received pay raises over the past couple of years.
At the Aug. 7 board meeting, city officials bemoaned a $174 cost for two switches that needed to be replaced at the Recycling Center to get it up and running again after an extended closure.
When I complained to Byrnes Mill officials about their refusal to answer questions about the budget, they replied that the budget was adopted in an open meeting. While that’s true, there wasn’t much discussion at that meeting. It’s difficult for a reporter to write a complete budget story based only on what’s said in the meeting when the budget is approved and on the information listed on the budget documents, especially when those documents include such scant information.
As a result of the city’s recent lack of transparency, Byrnes Mill residents don’t really know what’s going on with the tax revenue the city receives from them. The secrecy could even make them wonder if somebody is trying to hide something.
Those suspicions could easily be dispelled if the city’s officials just answered some basic questions, like they did last year when the Leader reported and published a story about the Byrnes Mill budget, and like other governmental bodies do every year when their new budget years roll around.