We continue to be bothered by the private process that local governments use to approve public contracts involving government employees.

Secrecy is a necessary part of the actual negotiating of contracts between local governments and public employees. Public bodies would be at a decided disadvantage if they had to publicly discuss their bargaining strategy during the course of extended negotiations.

But once a tentative contract is reached between the negotiating teams for the two sides, the terms of that agreement should be made public before the public body votes to ratify.