If you work for the government, “the people” are ultimately your boss. It’s a cliche, to be sure. It’s ungrammatical and oversimplified.

And yet — it’s an idea that’s vital to our democracy but sometimes forgotten by our leaders.

In the new year, those fortunate enough to work for the government, particularly those in leadership positions, should make a resolution to be as open, honest and transparent as possible.

That means handing over documents to people who ask for them without putting anyone through a rigmarole. Sure, there are documents that obviously shouldn’t be released, but agencies are supposed to lean toward openness when there’s any doubt.

Or better yet, posting papers with public interest online is an easy way to avoid time-consuming requests.

In addition, agencies should welcome public involvement in the decision-making process. Not only should public meetings be advertised as required by law, but elected officials should work to ensure that agendas are full and detailed and that meetings are held when normal people can actually attend.

Locally, Whidbey General Hospital and Island Transit have been the veritable poster children for government opacity. Hospital commissioners hold their monthly meetings at 7 a.m. on Mondays. They fired the guy who taped the meetings. The agendas are the bare minimum.

When a hospital administrator was accused of assaulting a patient, the hospital investigated the allegations through a “quality assurance committee” whose purpose is supposed to be to ensure the proper delivery of services and improvement of care.

After the hospital resisted a prosecutor’s subpoena for the committee’s report, a judge suggested that the quality assurance process — instead of a straightforward disciplinary investigation — was the hospital’s attempt to do an end run around the state’s Public Records Act.

At Island Transit, on the other hand, the lack of openness didn’t seem to be willful for the most part but just became normalized over the years. Officials, for example, stopped posting agenda and budget information online.  When financial problems came to light, the director and board’s initial reaction was to minimize the problems instead of going public and engaging the community.

Imagine if an employee at a private company sought to ignore the boss or even try to keep information from him or her.

Someone would be fired.