August 24, 2004

No Record

The Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission, in the news recently, has been holding a series of meetings for more than a year as it prepares to make a recommendation for reforming the state's tax structure. HobbsOnline has learned that there is no audio record of most of those hearings, only meeting "minutes" that are, by nature, incomplete.

Hearings held by most state legislative committees are commonly taped and the recordings are stored in the State Library and Archives. Meetings of the State Funding Board - the body that advises the legislature and governer each year with forecasts of economic and revenue growth - are taped.

Eileen Smith, executive director of the commission, responded to my email inquiring about getting a tape of the August 19 hearing, saying:

We do not have digital audio or video files. We have VHS copies of a few meetings - specifically meetings held the first quarter of 2003 as we awaited the appointment of additional members. Let me know if you're interested in those. ... The commission did not vote to record the proceedings. The Commission has been very sensitive about keeping its expenditures low.

The notion that taping the hearings would have been too costly is, frankly, absurd. A good digital audio recorder costs a few hundred dollars. The audio could have been stored on a PC hard drive, and uploaded to the website, at a total cost to the Commission of well under $1,000. The commission has probably spent more than that on coffee. It most assuredly spent more than that on travel.

But keeping a record of its meetings? Too costly.