The County responded yesterday to my question about making LSSI’s cost breakdown public with the following update to the Library FAQ:

“When will the cost estimates presumably submitted by LSSI as part of its proposal, as specified in section 6.4 of the RFP, be made available to the general public?

The RFP responses are only a portion of the overall library budget. The vendor cost estimates will be provided to the review committees which are open to public attendance. They are not being provided on-line. They need to be placed in context within an overall library budget presentation to make practical sense and be the basis for sound judgments. Without this background information, accurate and objective analysis would be impossible to perform.”

The County seems to be saying that by putting LSSI’s sealed cost breakdown online without the important context of the overall library budget, somehow the public would be unable to exercise sound judgment in reviewing it.

But the overall library budget is online here. If this online version of the library budget is insufficient, then it should be improved and enlarged, as issues like this clearly demonstrate.

The first meeting of the review committees (plural?) will be held on Thursday, December 10th, 8:00 a.m., at the Rood Center. Those of us who are interested in this level of detail and are not otherwise occupied (say, with a job!) might find it instructive to attend.

Let’s try to reserve judgment about the adequacy of the County’s response above until we have witnessed the review committee process firsthand.