Adams County Supervisors have made a habit of trouncing the Mississippi Open Meetings Act.

Now, they’ve become so brazen in their disregard for the laws intended to keep the public informed and public officials on the up and up that the supervisors are announcing ahead of time that they’ll close meetings.

Last week, supervisors said all of the meetings to form the county’s budget will be closed to the public.

What’s worse, the man who is hired to keep the supervisors on the straight and narrow legal path — board attorney Bobby Cox — says he has no intention of being at any of the meetings.

Supervisors cite privacy matters as the cause for slamming the door on the public. Supervisors say they need privacy to talk about a personnel matter, for instance a particular county employee’s job performance or pay raise needs.

Using this as an excuse to break the spirit of the law is tantamount to hiding behind your mother’s skirt.

Public employees’ pay is public record; their job performance records should be, too. Few, if any, things about a public worker’s ability to complete his job needs be discussed privately.

Supervisors are seeking to do so simply to avoid the political fallout if they opt not to give someone a pay raise or, heaven forbid, cut their pay.

Supervisors are “hired” by taxpayers to run the county and spend taxpayers’ money wisely, but having a band of brothers that seems all too happy to go into “executive session” at the drop of a hat is troubling.

The state’s Open Meetings Law was created to discourage the good ole boy network from continuing to flourish.

Yet, in Adams County the supervisors and their complete lack of sound legal advice, continue to keep pushing us back to the days when elected officials’ general attitude was “the less taxpayers know the better.”

Taxpayers deserve better.