District, city hall pass records test

(Note: This article is part one of two.)

A recent public records audit initiated by the Green River Star reveals Sweetwater County School District No. 2 and the Green River Finance Department were extremely helpful in releasing requested information and provided assistance in helping understand the data.

The newspaper’s intern, Lexi Mitchell, approached different government offices in early June and sought data available to the public through Wyoming’s public documents act. In this case, the newspaper sought tentative budget information from the city, county and school district.

While seeking the tentative budget from the city, Mitchell said Finance Director Chris Meats and his staff were very helpful in addressing her request.

“They were extremely friendly,” she said.

Mitchell said she was asked to wait for Meats to finish a phone call when she initially walked into the finance office at City Hall. However, after that concluded, Mitchell said Meats met with her and printed a copy of the tentative budget. He handed the document to Mitchell and declined payment for the printout. She also said he offered to answer any specific budgetary questions she had once she read through it.

Mitchell said seeking information about the school district’s tentative budget was as open a process, saying the district’s business manager Chris Dean sat with her to speak about the district’s budget plans.

When Mitchell arrived at the central administration building, she was directed to Dean’s office where Dean had a printout of the budget already available to review. Mitchell said Dean went through the budget page by page, explaining the different items.

“Any questions I had were answered right away,” Mitchell said.

When visiting the Sweetwater County Clerk’s Office, Mitchell said she spoke with Sweetwater County Clerk Cindy Lane.

When asking for the documents, Mitchell said Lane told her a tentative budget wasn’t available because the county commissioners were still working on it, but encouraged Mitchell to attend budget hearings either in person or through the county’s online stream.

Mitchell said Lane did her best to answer questions Mitchell had about funding to county entities. She also said Lane was supportive of Mitchell to join her registered party’s central committee, saying both parties need involvement from younger residents.

“She was very helpful and very encouraging to get people my age to step up,” Mitchell said.