PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Open the Books Coalition going strong
by Quinten Thursday, Oct. 31, 2002 at 2:53 PM
quinten@andrew.cmu.edu 412 268-2115

The Open the Books Coalition is going strong, with multiple organization endorsements, faculty supporters, and promising leads in getting staff and union support on the campaign. The Coalition has convinced the administration to give them a meeting.

download PDF (100.5 kibibytes)

Coalition members now include:

The Progressive Student Alliance
The Carnegie-Mellon College Republicans
The Carnegie-Mellon Women's Center
United Students Against Sweatshops - People for Worker's Rights
Zi-Activism

The Coalition has won a meeting with VP of Enrollment Bill Elliot (acting VP of Business and Planning with Jeff Bolton's resignation earlier this year). The meeting will take place Nov 7th at 4:30 PM.

The Coalition plans to present a strong case for a consistently enforced policy that provides the following:

Up-to-date budget information released every year, up to and including detailed line items where possible
Available in printed form in the University library
Available online in a useful form for generating summaries
Comparative data when detailed line-items would violate privacy, the law, or contract

Although the University claims to have an "open" budget currently, requests for specific information can take weeks or months to fulfill if fulfilled at all, and the information currently publically available is poorly organized and out of date. The Coalition argues that public availability by default will make it easier for the administration as well as satisying democratic principles.

Learn more on the Coalition's website.
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~psa/openbooks/

add your comments