Last week’s vote by the School Board to purchase new iPads for themselves came as something of a surprise to some of us here at the newspaper. Yet, it was not the vote itself that took us off guard as much as it was who voted for it; for, in the weeks leading up to the vote we had heard several Board members grumble – in private – about the unnecessary expense of such a purchase.

But when the time came to vote for the buy, their hands went up in the air.

The owner of the only dissenting vote, Mrs. Pauling, expressed herself clearly the next day, calling the purchase a “waste of money.”

Indeed, we could not agree more.

And while the Board should be criticized for the $10,700 price tag, the $2,700 annual maintenance fee and the fact that the product will be incompatible with the majority of the School District’s existing software, there is another matter lurking here that bears notice, and that is one of transparency.

The iPad is quite the nifty machine. Essentially, it can do everything your iPhone can do, except make phone calls. It can, for example, be used to transmit messages back and forth between users, something that could potentially encourage private communications between Board members during public meetings.

As it stands, it is difficult enough for Board members to consistently turn on their microphones so that their voices can be adequately heard during a public meeting.

Heaven forbid they come into possession of a device that allows them to cut the public out of their conversations completely.

If it were merely a matter of saving paper, one would think that the Board’s existing laptop computers would suffice, particularly in these days of tight budgets and waning state dollars.